


because love was your reality (but it wasn't mine)

by blondeslytherin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Healing, Lance is broken, Love, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post Season 8, Spoilers, learning to be okay, you all know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-09-18 08:11:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondeslytherin/pseuds/blondeslytherin
Summary: Lance found love in this reality once—he doesn’t think he’ll ever have it again. He swore to love Allura in this universe and the next, and he’s intent on keeping that promise. On the anniversary of her passing, Allura tells him that it’s okay to move on, to find love again and Lance doesn’t believe her—doesn’t want to believe her. How is he supposed to love someone like he loved her?Altean marks, space phones, and two hearts that were denied their love once, with time telling them to try again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i bullshitted this in a matter of three hours because I was like way too full of feelings and this just had to be written. that being said, i have only a vague idea of what i'm going to do with this, so buckle up kiddos, this is about to be a ride.  
> that being said, no beta read as of 12/14/18 (message me or comment if you see anything, please)
> 
> this is like, a fix it of sorts. you'll see. just read.
> 
> edit: I am so sorry guys I forgot that this was multichaptered, i'm running on a high fever and no caffeine please forgive me

It was still warm out, a summer breeze making the flowers dance. Lance didn’t ever think he’d get used to the temperature here; it was always just on the edge of perfect, but not quite. The time of year still threw him, though space should have gotten him accustomed to things being wrong. The Altean summers followed the Earth winters, and Lance was never cold, not really, at least on the outside.

Two years. It had been two years since she had passed. He looked up from where he stood, watching the statue as it began to softly glow. Everyone else would be arriving soon, and by then, Allura should be fully lit up.

He watched the statue for another moment, something deep inside him aching as he took in her features. Coran had commissioned only the best artist to create her rendition, but it still wasn’t quite right. They had gotten her smile wrong. Or maybe they didn’t, and Lance was still missing the ones she gave him; soft, when no one was looking.

And then he began to walk, away from her likeness, and towards the table they had set up in the middle of the courtyard. Coran was already there, laying out silver wear and plates for them. Six in total, not one more, not one less.

“There you are, young man!” Coran called out to him as soon as Lance was in shouting range. “Come to help me set up the rest of these places?”

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, alright, if I must.” A nearby girl waited next to a dolly, laden with everything they would need tonight. She glanced anxiously between Lance and Coran, squeaking and turning her face away when she noticed Lance’s gaze.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he said, flushing himself. No matter how long it had been, it was still weird for him to see anyone get flustered by him. It didn’t feel right. “I just want to get those plates from you,” he said gently.

“Anything for you, Sir Lance.”

Lance glanced over at Coran, who only quirked a ginger eyebrow. Lance narrowed his eyes in response, before fixing his expression and turning back to the girl. “Sir Lance? That’s a new one.”

She whipped her head around, eyes wide and face ashen. “Oh, I’m so sorry, forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Easy there, I’m not offended,” Lance said, panicking internally. This would never get any easier; he wasn’t meant for this. He squatted down, knees popping, in order to be face level with her. He waited until she met his eyes, before she turned away just as quickly. “You didn’t offend me. You just called me what you thought was right, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m flattered, really.” The girl looked back at him, and he gave her a winning smile that felt wrong on his face. “But really, I’m just a boy from Cuba, a small island on a planet called Earth. I’m not that special.”

“But you were made,” she whispered, and Lance squirmed, fighting the urge to touch his marks.

“Maybe so,” he said, jaw working to keep the smile in place, “but it didn’t change who I was: an ordinary person, just like you.”

She shook her head. “You’re not ordinary.”

Quiznack, why was this girl making it so hard? He just wanted to set the damn table. “If you say so,” he said, chuckling softly. “But really, I’d much rather fade into the shadows.” He followed his sentence with a wink, and the girl giggled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to set this table. It’s a very important day today.”

She nodded, and stepped back, and Lance gratefully snagged as many plates as he could carry over to the table.

Coran was still watching him, tweaking the end of his moustache with glove clad fingers. “Oh, hush,” Lance hissed at him, and Coran gave him no reply.

Only once the rest of the table had been set and the sky began to glow once more from the lanterns strung throughout the courtyard did Coran speak to him.

“The others should be here soon.”

“Want to place bets on who’ll get here first?” Lance asked, moving over to stand side by side with him. Coran glanced at him, looking thoughtful.

“You know, Lance, she was only trying to be kind.”

Despite himself, despite what today meant to him, Lance’s hands curled into tight fists at his sides and he wondered how much trouble he would get in for breaking something. Not a lot, if the _Sir_ title was anything to go by.

“I don’t deserve it.”

“Oh, but my boy, you do.”

“Coran,” he said in warning.

“You did something special, my boy. When will you acknowledge it?”

Lance was saved from replying as a wormhole opened up in the sky, followed by distant cheers. Pidge’s ship popped through, and Lance allowed himself a small smile. That was Pidge for you: always arriving first, and always in style.

Her elegant, green ship landed about a mile from the statue, and Lance wanted to run out to meet her and scoop her up in a hug. They hadn’t seen each other since this time last year, and he missed her more than he thought possible. But she had taken to Quadrant Five of the galaxy, and they needed her work more than Lance needed his friend.

Another wormhole popped into the sky, followed by another. Hunk and Shiro then, if their ships were anything to go by. Coran was grinning beside him now, and Lance chanced a glance at Allura’s statue. It had definitely begun to glow now, a soft pink and blue hue emanating from it. It wouldn’t be long until they felt her here, once more at peace with all of them gathered.

A fourth and final wormhole opened in the sky, opened and closed just as quickly as one ship could pass through. All black, and a purple insignia on the lower hull. That would be Keith then.

“Lance!” A shrill voice burst through the air, and Lance turned just in time to be tackled to the ground by a small female with more strength than her size should allow for.

“Pidge!” he laughed into her hair, squeezing her tightly. Her arms were wound around his neck, and Lance struggled to breathe, but he wouldn’t change it for anything. “How are you?”

“Amazing!” she squealed. “Oh, I have so much to tell you later.”

“Alright, alright, let’s not let Sir Lance be smushed to death,” Coran quipped above them, and Lance knew it was only because he wanted to say hello to Pidge as well. But the Sir comment stung.

Pidge pulled back, the pair of them still on the ground, and gave Lance a quizzical look. “Sir?”

Lance pursed his lips. “I’ll explain later.”

But then Pidge was being pulled off of him, wrapped up in Coran’s arms, and hoisted himself up just in time to see Hunk walking into view, Shay on his arm. Lance grinned at the pair of them, causing his best friend and his fiancée to blush. As much as a living rock could blush, that is.

“How you doin, buddy?”

“Lance,” Hunk said in reply, finally reaching him and dropping Shay’s arm in order to scoop him into a hug. “Quiznack, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Lance said, meaning more than he could ever express. “Cooking dinner for tonight?”

“You know it!”

They pulled away, and there was Shiro, looking as handsome as ever, clean shaven and brighter eyed that Lance had seen him in a while. And then Shiro shifted slightly to the left, and Lance saw why.

“Oh ho ho, is that a man I see?”

Shiro looked mortified. “Lance!”

But said man stepped around Shiro, laughing and holding a hand out. “I’m Curtis. Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so much about the esteemed sharpshooter.”

“All good things, I hope,” Lance chuckled nervously, shaking Curtis’ hand and shooting Shiro a look that said, _it better have been all good things._ Shiro gave him a tiny nod and Lance returned it.

Hugs were passed all around, but Lance couldn’t help but check up at the sky every now and then. He was pretty sure it had been Keith’s ship that passed through that final wormhole, and he definitely should have been here by now. Tonight didn’t work if Keith wasn’t here.

The others had noticed his absence as well, and Coran shot him a look that asked where he was. Lance shrugged in reply, growing slightly anxious at the thought of him not being here. His marks warmed in response to his feelings, and Lance wanted nothing more than to cover them when he picked up on more than one stare.

“He’ll be here soon,” Hunk said, peering over Shay’s shoulder, as if he could spot Keith cresting the horizon. “He made it last year, and while he might not have the best track record at keeping dates…” Hunk trailed off, and threw a glance at Lance instead.

Lance made a face at him, having no idea what Hunk was trying to imply. He thought he heard a, ‘never mind, it doesn’t matter’, before Hunk went back to searching.

“Well,” Coran said, clasping his hands together. “For now, why don’t we all get seated and Hunk can begin dinner.”

No one moved as they looked at the number of places, and then back up at the extra guests.

That same fluttery panic began once more in his core, and Lance felt his fingers begin to twitch. They couldn’t have any more than the originals here, otherwise it wouldn’t work. That's how it was the first time, it would have to be the same this time to work. And it had to work. It had to. That was the only reason Lance ever came back to Altea, and if it didn’t work—

Coran interrupted his thought spiral. “I’m sure our dates don’t mind leaving us for just this one meal. Paladin event only, I’m afraid.”

No one bothered to point out that Coran hadn’t been a paladin as Shay said, “oh! Of course!” kissed Hunk, and then made her way out of the courtyard and toward the castle, following the string of lights that had been set up. Curtis glanced anxiously at Shiro—which was understandable, considering he’d never been here before—and Shiro pressed a soft kiss to his temple before shoving him lightly by the rear in the direction that Shay had gone. Curtis took the hint and made a swift exit.

There. That was better. It was just the five of them now, six, once Keith got here. It would be fine.

Lance saw Allura’s statue begin to glow brighter out of the corner of his eye, and turned just in time to see Keith enter the courtyard, dressed in black pants and a maroon sweater. “Hope I’m not too late,” he said sheepishly, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets and avoiding Lance’s eye.

“Not at all my boy! You’re right on time!” Lance didn’t miss the way Coran’s shoulders released their tension, or the way Pidge slowly let her fork fall to the table, her fist having uncurled around it the moment Keith spoke. “Now, if we can all take our seats…”

Lance slipped gratefully into his, Keith plopping down into the one on his left, Coran in the one on his right, a gap between their two chairs.

The light was fading rapidly, until the entire courtyard was just lit by the glowing lanterns and Allura’s statue, the blue and pink luminescence spreading out into the air, floating like fireflies above their heads, around their hands.

Coran cleared his throat, and a solemnness descended over the group. “Today,” the older man began, as Lance closed his eyes, “we remember our fallen Princess, who died for all realities to coexist, to fix the mistakes of our predecessors. Today, we remember and honor Princess Allura.” Wetness pricked at his eyes, and Lance didn’t fight it as he bowed his head. “Gathered around this table sit the Paladins of Voltron, in remembrance of your sacrifice. On this night, Princess, we hope that you remember us, and join us for this meal.”

The luminescence was shining brighter, to the point where Lance could see it even through his closed eyes. Spots danced in his vision, and his fists were curled so tight that his nails threatened to break the skin of his palms.

A hand reached out, under the table, to wrap around his fist and the tears began to slip down his cheeks, his shoulders shaking with the force of it all.

And then, a light hand on his right shoulder, and Lance’s jaw trembled as he opened his eyes. Standing next to him, looking like she hadn’t been gone for two years, stood Allura, giving Lance a sad smile.

“Hello, Lance,” she said.

“Allura,” was the only thing he could. And he knew—distantly—that there were other people here, but in this moment, it was only the two of them. Slowly, oh so slowly, he uncurled his hands from fists and that distant ghost of a feeling on his left hand was gone. Slowly, oh so slowly, he raised his hand up to place it on top of Allura’s, praying to every ancient he knew of not to let his hand pass right through.

When it didn’t, he gave her a wobbly smile, to which she returned.

“You came,” he whispered.

“I came,” she replied. They stared at each other, and Lance tried to map out her features once more. Much of her looked the same: the wild, silver white hair tumbling down her back, the bright blue eyes that never failed to shine. She was dressed in something similar to what she had worn for their date, but her essence remained just as he knew it. But she wasn’t just as he knew her. She looked wiser, more worn around the edges, but at the same time like she had finally found the peace she had wanted all her life.

Someone cleared their throat, and Lance was brought back to the present moment. “Why don’t you take a seat, Princess,” Shiro said gently. “I bet you’re tired after all that travelling.”

Allura gave a light laugh as a chair manifested behind her, and she sat down gracefully into it. “Yes, traversing realities really can be quite exhausting.” The whole time, Lance never once took his eyes off of her. A soft blush graced her cheeks when she noticed his staring, and Lance felt his own cheeks heat up in return.

She looked around the group, and Lance finally forced his eyes away in order to do the same. Pidge and Hunk both had tear tracks down their faces, and looked as if they were trying their best to hold it together. Shiro looked happy, reminiscent of what was, content with where they were in the present. Coran… well, Coran was harder to read. His face kept shifting between expressions, and Lance couldn’t latch onto any of them quick enough to get a read on how he was doing. And when his gaze finally landed on Keith, he found the boy staring straight down at his plate, his face hard and closed off.

“I’ll go and get the meal ready,” Hunk said, standing up and excusing himself from the table. “I prepared it on the way here, so it should all be fresh and good to eat. I’ll just have the kitchen staff plate it, and I’ll let them know what order it should come out in.”

Once Hunk had left the courtyard, silence descended upon the table. Lance had a million and one things to say to Allura, but none that he wanted to share in front of everybody.

Oddly enough, it was Allura that broke the silence first. “I hear you have a new boyfriend, Shiro.”

Shiro’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise. “How’d you hear that?”

Allura giggled. “Being the mistress of realities does have its perks, you know.”

From there, conversation flowed easily. Pidge explained her latest gadgets and gear, going over the fine details that made Lance’s head spin. Hunk wasn’t here to follow it, so Pidge prattled on without anyone understanding for a good few minutes before Coran finally cut her off, excitedly explaining how Lance had been taking over some of the classes while he was here.

Allura turned to him in surprise when she heard this. “Really? And what are you teaching them, Lance? All appropriate things, I hope.”

“Earth culture,” he replied simply, feeling the way her gaze softened when she heard this. “I teach Alteans about Earth culture, and Earthlings about Altean culture when I go back home. A peak of having both sides of the story, I suppose.”

It was like a switch had been flipped; Allura’s face closed off, and she slid her eyes away from him, and Lance felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him.

“So, Keith, tell me how you’ve been getting on.”

Keith’s head jerked up in surprise at the mention of his name, and his eyes darted over to Lance briefly before he began to explain that he had been starting relief efforts as a humanitarian project.

He had just gotten into an explanation about how water bottles were becoming aids for food collection when Hunk came back, first course in tow.

The night was fun; laughter was shared all around, good stories caught each other up in the lives of those they had missed for a year. But Lance’s mood had been soured, and it only got worse when he got annoyed at himself for it souring in the first place.

Allura glanced at him every now and then, but it wasn’t the same, not like when she had first arrived. Her blue eyes held something else, and Lance wanted nothing more than to storm away from this dinner and ask her every question that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask the last time she was here.

But he was here, with friends he only ever saw once a year now, and it wasn’t an opportunity to be wasted. Lance knew too much about wasted opportunities. As the night passed, they fell back into their easy banter, something that even time and space didn’t seem to have erased. Lance watched them all, a deep longing deep inside of him for nights like these to never end, for nothing to change again. For time and life to stand still, and let this reality be the one they all found happiness in.

But life wouldn’t have it that way, and soon enough they were all yawning, Pidge practically slumped over in her potatoes.

“Bed, all of you,” Shiro said, that same dad like voice making itself known for the first time in two years. “We can catch up some more tomorrow.” No one protested as they all stood up at once, trading hugs until all had been hugged. Well, almost all.

When Lance and Keith got to each other, Lance didn’t know what to do. They weren’t the hugging type, and Keith wasn’t making any moves to do so either. They stared awkwardly at each other, Keith’s face still that unreadable mask before something in it softened, and he pulled Lance into a hug.

Lance let out a soft, ‘oof’, at the contact, before hesitantly wrapping his arms around Keith. “I missed you, buddy.”

“I missed you too, Lance.”

When they pulled back, that same openly guarded expression was back in place, and Lance felt like he had missed the joke somewhere along the way. He opened his mouth to ask about it, but Keith nudged him with one shoulder. “Go,” he murmured. “Your princess is waiting for you.”

Allura was in fact lingering by the trellis that marked the walkway back to the castle, and Lance gave Keith a final, small smile before he moved to follow his princess. There would be time to talk to Keith in the morning; he only had Allura for tonight.

She slipped her hand into his when he reached her, and they began the walk back to the castle. He tried not to shiver at her touch, tried not to flinch away from it.

“Does it bother you? The cold?”

“No,” he lied, wishing her fingers would warm, just slightly, so it felt less like holding a dead person’s hand.

She hummed, a noise that meant she didn’t really believe him but wasn’t going to push it. They were about halfway there when she spoke again. “I’m sorry I’m only able to visit you once a year,” she murmured, voice like silk.

“It’s alright,” Lance lied again.

“Lance,” she said, this time calling him out on it.

“I miss you, alright? What’s so wrong about that?”

She gave him a pained expression. “I miss you too, Lance. But it’s not that simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t keep doing this. You hanging onto me every year.”

“This is only the second year it’s happened.”

“But you don’t want it to be the last.”

Lance stopped suddenly, that cold feeling returning. “What are you saying, Allura?”

That same pained expression. “Let’s get back to the castle, and I’ll explain, alright?”

Lance stared at her. He wanted to shout, tell her that no, it wasn’t alright, he wanted an explanation now and he wanted it to be an honest one. But she was giving him that look, the look that begged him to trust her, and he had no choice but to follow her, just like he always did, just like he always would. To the ends of the universe, in this reality and the next, he had promised her.

The rest of the walk felt like a death march that took twenty years. A ball of anxiety had formed in his stomach, and Lance wanted nothing more than to just stop, to let go, to go back to the way it was, universes be damned.

When they finally reached his room, Allura led him directly to his bed, and Lance felt his heart ricocheted out of his chest, but it was quickly handed back to him when he saw the somber expression on her face.

He waited for her to speak first, despite the heavy weight of his tongue from all of the questions he longed to ask.

“When I… when I died, I didn’t really die,” she said slowly, not looking at him. Lance sat down next to her, and blinked twice, trying to make sure he heard her correctly.

“You’re alive?” he finally managed to choke out.

“No, no,” she hastened to correct him. “Not alive. My body, my real body, is gone, but my energy still exists in the universe. That’s why I’m able to visit you. And the universe was scared. She was so scared, scarred from what happened when Honerva attacked. She wanted a protector.”

“She chose you,” Lance said, the inkling of realization pooling in his gut.

“She chose me,” Allura confirmed. “And I live to protect her, overseeing all versions of time and space and reality now.” She fidgeted with her hands, spinning the silver band around her ring finger, the one Lance had given to her after their first date. He took her hands in his, and finally she met his gaze, blue eyes glassy with tears. “I know what would have happened had I lived,” she said, voice breaking. “Had I lived in the one reality we had left, where you and I and the rest of Voltron were. We would have been happy, Lance.”

He knew tears were running down his own face, but he didn’t care, didn’t feel them. “We were happy.” He squeezed her hands. “We _are_ happy.”

She shook her head, crying harder now. “No, Lance, we’re not. I see you once a year, and even then, it’s so hard to be here, to confine myself to one reality for any stretch of time.”

“Then why do you do it?”

She let go of one of his hands, reaching up to cup his face. He leaned into her touch, cool as it was. “Because, Lance, I love you. And I’m sorry that it took me so long to tell you. I’m sorry that I was so mean to you for so long. I’m so sorry that we didn’t have more time.”

“We have time,” he insisted. “I can still see you, once a year. We have time, Allura.”

“No, Lance, we don’t. Which is why I need you to let me go.”

That cold feeling had fully taken over his body now, to the point where Lance didn’t think he’d ever feel warm again. How had he taken for granted the warmth tonight, when everything in him was now so cold?

“Allura, please.”

She smiled sadly at him, her tears having run out. “I’ve seen every reality imaginable. I’ve seen into time and I know where your path ends. Our reality would have once been love, our reality was love, but love is not finite. Time is. Give your love to someone worthy.”

“ _You_ are worthy.”

“Maybe,” she said, cupping his face with her other hand now, his own hands grasping at empty air. “But there is someone else who is worthy, Lance, not that I ever thought anyone would ever be worthy of you, deserving of you. You are so wonderful. You deserve nothing but as much love as you give,” she finished softly, pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead. “You deserve love, Lance. And I can’t give you any more than I already have.”

“You deserve so much, Allura.”

“And you have given all that you can, Lance. I will take nothing more from you.”

“You never took it. I gave it all up willingly, because that’s how much I loved you. How much I still love you.”

“Which is why you need to let me go.”

“No.”

She stood up then, warm air brushing his cheeks where her hands had been. Five paces away, but the space between them felt infinite. “Do you know why you’re Altean now?”

This was it; the question that had been plaguing him for two years. But now, with the answer in his reach, Lance didn’t care for it. Allura was determined that he hear it, angry words being spoken at him with a passion that made his blood boil in the best way. “Because I gave my love to you. That’s what would have happened when we married; you would have become Altean. Do you know why?” Lance stared at her, shocked. “It’s because the love was pure. Pure love transforms those who feel it the most strongly. I love you Lance, and I will always love you. But I cannot give you any more than you already have. I cannot give you what you desire most.”

“And what do you know about what I desire most?” he asked in a low voice, hard and sharp like the blade he carried on his hip.

“You desire a family, Lance.” His head snapped up. “You desire children, a place to call your own, happiness in abundance. You desire someone to create new adventures with, someone who will have your back no matter what, someone who doesn’t leave you when you need them most. You desire all of the things that I cannot give you. You’re not wrong for wanting that. You wanted it long before you ever left Earth for the first time. I know your path, Lance. It was the first thing the universe showed me. Because I wouldn’t let you go. And I needed to let you go.”

His heart—he couldn’t feel his heart.

“Do not take that as me forgetting you. I don’t that will ever be possible. But I needed to let you go, and in order to do that, you needed love of your own.”

“I have people that love me,” he said hoarsely, barely hanging on to the present moment, mind spinning too hard and too fast. “I have people that love me.”

“You do,” she agreed. “And that person is so much closer than you realize, Lance.”

He stood up, closing the gap between them easily, pressing his mouth down onto hers. She arched into the kiss, gasping, melting against him as he wound his arms around her. “You’re right here.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I’m not going to forget you, Allura. You said it yourself, that it would be impossible.”

“I’m not asking you to forget me.”

“Then what are you asking for?”

“I’m just asking for you to find happiness.”

“I am happy.”

She raised a finger, tracing it lightly over his Altean marks. “No. You’re not.”

“I’m happy enough.”

There was that same smile again, the one that struck like a jackhammer against his glass heart. “But you deserve more than enough.”

And then she was fading, dissolving in his arms until he was left clutching at empty air.

And Lance cried. Cried until there were no tears left, cried until the sun had kissed the horizon and Allura was long gone. Lance cried until he couldn’t cry anymore. Too many things he had meant to say, too many things that he couldn’t. It would be another full year before he would have the chance to, and a sinking feeling told him that Allura might not be able to return to him again.

The rest of the group were all waiting around the same table they had dinner at the night before when Lance was finally able to pull himself together and leave his bedroom. Allura’s statue was once more the faded silver marble, nothing luminescent about it now. Lance noted duly that the stone almost matched her hair, had it been just a shade darker.

Keith was the first to fall silent as he noticed Lance walking up to the group, followed quickly by the others.

“Is she gone?” Coran asked quietly, and the thickness in Lance’s throat wouldn’t let him speak, so he settled on nodding instead.

“It was good to see her again,” Shiro said, and if Lance hadn’t been out of tears he might have started crying again.

“Until next year, I suppose,” Pidge said, but the usual joy in her voice was gone. All of it—all of them—they all felt so empty.

Lance sat down at the only open seat left, staring off into the distance.

Yes, Pidge’s voice might have been empty, but no one was quite so empty as the Altean that wasn’t meant to be.

~~~

Lance expected Keith to be the first one gone, but when night fell, he was still here. It was the clattering of stones that roused Lance from a restless state, prompting him to look out of his window, blinking wearily. At first, he didn’t see anything, but then the clatter of stones came again, and Lance poked his head out of the window, hair ruffled by the midnight breeze.

“Keith? Are you on the roof?”

Silence. And then:

“…no?”

“Oh my god, he’s on the roof,” Lance muttered to himself, ducking his head back into his room and then shoving his feet into the shoes resting carelessly at the foot of his bed. A moment later he was hoisting himself up by the handholds he had so carefully carved the last time he was here, his fingers slipping easily into the now well-worn grooves.

Lance popped his head up over the lip of the roof, and sighed when he saw Keith perched like a cat that had just been found stealing from the cookie jar, eyes wide and posture rigid.

He didn’t offer out a hand as Lance tugged himself up and over the edge, butt scooting until he was even with Keith.

“You can relax now.”

Keith didn’t relax. “How’d you know I was up here? I thought you were asleep?”

Lance scoffed. “I haven’t slept in like, four years. Wait, how long have we been in space? Yeah, however long since we first went into space is how long I’ve not slept.”

“Dude,” Keith chided, but there was no heat in it.

“Okay, seriously, you need to relax before I tense up as well.” Finally, Keith sagged slightly, shifting until he was seated on his ass next to Lance, legs drawn up so that he could rest his chin against them.

They sat in silence, both watching the stars, until the silence had lasted so long that Lance was beginning to squirm. “How come you didn’t leave with the others?” He felt as Keith’s gaze flicked over to him, and Lance hastened to remedy his question when it was clear Keith was hurt. “Not that I don’t like having you here or whatever, I just thought you had important Blade stuff to do.”

Keith shrugged. “It could wait.” Lance looked over at him, trying to mask his surprise. That was a new answer. “I’m in this system for a while, and one more day wasn’t going to kill my schedule. Figured I might as well spend it here.”

Lance nodded. Logical answer, even if it wasn’t exactly a Keith-like answer.

“Why are you still here?”

Lance stilled at the question. It took him a beat to formulate an answer. “Because there’s still work to do,” he managed at last, tongue stumbling over the syllables.

This time, Keith nodded.

“Hey, so um,” Keith started, and then broke into a coughing fit. Lance looked over in concern, wondering if he needed to do anything about it, but Keith held up a hand while the other was pressed to his chest, signaling that yeah, he was fine. Lance watched him to make sure he wasn’t about to asphyxiate, the nagging ball in his stomach growing tighter, the lack of warmth in his chest growing stronger.

Keith took a long deep breath in when he finally recovered from the fit. He muttered something under his breath that Lance didn’t quite catch, before dragging a hand through his hair. “If you ever, you know, want to talk or anything, I had Pidge rig up this new device that works better than the ones we had before. It would just, I don’t know actually, but we could probably text on it. If. If you want,” he finished lamely, looking anywhere but at Lance.

Lance considered him for a long moment before minutely lifting one shoulder. “Yeah, that’s cool.”

“Cool, cool.”

That same persistent silence. “Lance, if you ever want to talk, about any of it, I really am here.” Lance angled his head, catching Keith’s eye. He expected Keith to turn away, but he held his gaze, and for once, Lance didn’t feel inclined to break it. “Just cause, you know, I care about you. And you deserve to be happy.”

It was an echo of Allura’s words last night, and Lance didn’t feel anything but that cold, that cold hard ball that nagged and pulled at him in the pit of his stomach. _You deserve more than enough._

_No. I don’t. I had my chance and I blew it and now you’re dead and I can’t take it, can’t take the thought of it, you’re supposed to be here—_

“Thanks man,” Lance said, trying to shove Allura’s voice away, the screams of pain that still haunted him. “Means a lot.”

Keith watched him, expression unreadable, before nodding slowly. “Anytime.” He stood up then, feet sliding slightly on the roof, arms outstretched for balance. “I’ll drop the device off in your room, and it should work just like a phone.” And then he was gone, dropping off the lip of the roof, making no sound as he landed.

Lance stayed up there, waiting until he was sure Keith was gone, watching the two stars that hung in the sky until dawn erased him and he was empty once more.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance ignores the device for as long as he can. It was a stupid idea anyway. 
> 
> But Lance was never really all that great at ignoring Keith, now was he? 
> 
> //an abuse of italics and bold, and way too many emotions for everyone//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take it. just take it, please. 
> 
> hi i'm tired, i don't know if this makes any sense or even fits the characters because it's late and this was written in the span of two days so far.
> 
> if any of you have ever seen the movie Lemonade Mouth, i want the device that Bridget Mendler uses that takes her sad thoughts from inside and makes them into a song because that would be so helpful rn in getting this story out of my head

When he finally did make it back to his bedroom, sticky from the sun and in need of water, there was in fact a device laying on his bed, nestled between the sheets. Lance gazed at it from afar, wondering distantly how Keith knew this was his bedroom but more about why he actually left it. Yeah, they had a nice roof conversation, but in these two years they’d grown apart. There’d barely been any communication between them; Lance was too busy darting between Altea and Earth, trying to keep his mind anywhere but where it inevitably went, and Keith was off doing hell knows what in a fuck ass corner of the universe that apparently needed him more than his former teammates. Dinner was nice when they all managed to get together, but it wasn’t like how it had been. Nothing was like how it had been.

So Lance gazed at the device for a long moment, thoughts not quite here, not quite there, just… nowhere.

And then he turned and walked out of the room, walking at a pace just over the edge of normal toward the bathing hall.

~~~

Coran keeps him busy here. There’s so much to do, between rebuilding a colony that hasn’t existed in this solar system on a planet that hasn’t existed for tens of thousands of years. There’re children to teach, fields to tend to, cows to milk.

Coran keeps him busy, and it helps to dull the coldness that Lance feels. Mainly. Some days are harder than others, and today threatens to be one of those days, but Lance won’t let it. Refuses to let it.

In fact, Coran keeps him busy all the way until dinner, until it’s just the two of them at a small table, each munching away at their respective dinners. Lance has taken to Earth food once more, while Coran has been strictly on an Altean diet once more. One look at his plate has Lance’s stomach churning, and he is suddenly very grateful for his beans and rice.

“So,” Coran begins, in a voice that has Lance’s stomach sinking. “I heard the Black Paladin spent another night here.”

“We aren’t paladins anymore,” Lance mumbles around a mouthful of food. “And yeah, he’s in the solar system for a little while, had some things to take care of. What’s the big deal? It’s not like we have a shortage of rooms.”

Coran just raises one eyebrow, looking into his drink as he stirs it with his spoon. “Oh yes, of course not, silly of me to mention.”

“Coran…”

Coran looks up, the picture of innocence. “What is it, young man?”

“What are you playing at?”

His free hand, which had previously been languidly dragging his fork through a stringy pink substance, finds its way to the end of his mustache, twirling it. “Nothing, my boy. Nothing at all.”

Lance watches him for a moment more, skeptical, before turning back to his own food.

They eat in silence, and Lance fidgets the rest of their dinner, hating the way it drills into his head. After all of these years, he can’t take the silence. There wasn’t any silence at home; too many children and extended family to ever have a peaceful moment. There wasn’t any silence in space; through the vastness of it all, nothing was ever silent, too many of the castle’s sounds making odd noises at random times. There wasn’t any silence in battle; the clashing of metal and screams of the dying made sure of that. There wasn’t any silence in the fallout; too many people ordering things around, too many places to be and too many words to speak when people realized they still had voices in order to do so. But now. All there is, is silence. And Lance can’t take another moment of it.

His chair scrapes loudly as he roughly pushes back from the table, Coran looking up at him in surprise, his spoon clattering against his mug as he drops it.

Lance doesn’t speak as he walks away, guilt eating at him for leaving rudely. There’s no time to fix it; he’s already gone. The further away he gets, Lance isn’t sure he _wants_ to fix it.

It’s too calm. Too peaceful since the war ended. Yes, there’s always movement, there always will be movement as the people continue to rebuild, but it’s not the _same_. Nothing is the _same_.

No more lonely nights spent in the castle, wondering if Allura was thinking about him and desperately hoping she was. No more laughter around a table piled high with food goo after another planet liberated. No more _them._

Lance walks into his bedroom, the metal door whooshing closed behind him, and stops dead.

The device still rests on his bed, exactly where he left it earlier. Black and sleek, it’s innocuous but garish at the same time. This go around, there are too many thoughts in his head, too many as he strides over, picks up the device and hurtles it against the wall.

No amount of technology will bring back the gap between them—any of them—and Keith was a fool for thinking it might. How Lance would have begged for a device like this, a long time ago, when space whales and pining were prominent.

But now— _fuck-_ —now nothing will ever make it like it was.

He hates it.

With every fiber of his being, he hates it.

He doesn’t even know what _it_ is, but the rage in his core, the aching, the _cold that seeps in_ , he _hates_ it.

Something crinkles under him as he lands on the bed. Fishing with his hand, he pulls out a now rumpled piece of paper, covered with a single line of neat handwriting.

_Text me whenever you need to_

_-K_

Lance stares at it, the words refusing to register in his mind, before crumpling that up and throwing it in the direction of the device.

~~~

Days pass, and Lance falls back into the rhythm of things. Altean days are similar enough to Earth days that he can figure out where he’s supposed to be when, but some days he gets a little lost. Like today.

When he shows up at the pasture, ready to hang out with Kalternecker once again, the other farm hand gives him a worried look. “It’s not a Delis. You’re only ever here on Delises.”

Lance stares back at him. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be here.”

The farmhand shakes her head. “Nope, definitely not. It’s a Marco. You’re supposed to be with the children.”

“But it was a Marco two days ago—”

“No, it was a _Marca_ two days ago.”

Fuck, was it? Lance certainly didn’t know. “Listen,” he all but growled. “I don’t care what day it is. I’m supposed to be here.”

The farmhand wasn’t budging. “Sorry. If it wasn’t a Marco, I’d let you stay. But the children kinda like you…”

Now Lance was growling. “Listen, buddy. I’m a paladin of Voltron—”

“ _Former_ paladin.”

Did everyone on this planet have a nerve to pick with him? “I’m a _Paladin of Voltron._ I can be where I want to be.”

“Dude, even if you managed to bone the Princess, I wouldn’t let you in here when you aren’t supposed to be.”

Lance snaps. In a flash, there are four new holes in the barn, his bayard smoking at his side, already holstered back into its resting position. His voice is low and hard when he speaks. “Don’t you _ever_ speak about Allura that way again.”

And then he’s stalking off, making his way down the long trail that leads him to the children’s center, fuming. The icy feeling is taking root with a vengeance, spreading down into his finger tips until even the summer heat won’t thaw them.

By the time he reaches the children’s center, he’s cooled off temper wise. He stalls outside the doorway, watching through the glass at the class inside.

The nursemaid has a holopad in her hands, and he’s at the wrong angle to see what’s on it, but whatever it is, the children sit there, enraptured. Bright, young faces lean forward eagerly, and a collective gasp goes up around the room when the nursemaid switches to a new image. No one’s taken notice of him yet, and Lance is content to just sit here and observe from the outside. Fond memories make themselves known when his attention lands on a boy and girl, sitting side by side, clearly siblings from the resemblance they share. One has a tiny hand wrapped around the other’s, and Lance remembers a time when he and Rachel used to be like that, young and thrilled by the world. Rachel is galaxies away, now, teaching children far and wide about her own earth customs, likely doing a better job than Lance ever could.

The nursemaid chooses that moment to look up, making eye contact with Lance and immediately grinning. Lance can’t say the same for his response, although he does raise a hand in greeting.

At least four children jump up when they realize he’s right outside, running over and smushing their tiny faces against the glass, nose scrunched up. Lance feels the laughter bubbling up inside of him at the sight, but only a small smile is able to grace his lips.

The door slides open, more of that mystical technology that always proved so inconvenient for him. “Why don’t you come in?” the nursemaid asks in her little children voice, soothing and inviting but also commanding, all at once.

Lance takes a few steps over, trying not to look at the siblings that remind him too much of the past, graciously sinking into the open seat next to the nursemaid.

“Class, this is—”

“I know who it is!” shouts a little girl.

“Me too! Me too!” chimes another.

“It’s Lance! He’s the Blue Paladin!”

Lance doesn’t bother to correct them, feeling just a brush of warmth at their eagerness.

One little boy smiles smugly from the middle of the room. “My sissy calls him Sir Lance. She says it’s a title of respect he got for saving the Princess from her sleep, just like in the fairytales. One day, I’m gonna have that title.”

And just like that, the brush of warmth is gone, whisked away by the breeze of words. No one else sees the tension that Lance feels. No one else bothers to comment on the way he’s fallen still, the way everything inside of him screeched to a halt.

_It’s been two years, Lance. Please, you need to move on. You need to let go._

“I didn’t save her,” he says in a quiet voice, and in a rare event, all of the children fall silent at once.

“Of course you did,” says the same little boy. “That’s what the stories all say.”

Lance shakes his head. “The stories are wrong.”

The children glance from the Lance to the nursemaid, who is now looking at Lance with a panicked fear in her eyes.

“Oh, that’s not true,” she says, forced laughter on her mouth. “Lance is just being humble, children.”

“It is true,” Lance insists, turning and fixing her with a gaze. “Allura woke up because of Blue. She didn’t wake up because of anything I ever did.”

“But… but you caught her, didn’t you? And that’s how she fell in love with you?”

Fuck, who had been going around and telling these children he had been in love with Allura? They were like, five, for fucks sake.

“No. No, Princess Allura didn’t fall for me then.” Lance can feel himself slipping, and he knows it’s happening, but he can’t pull himself back up from the nosedive in time. “It took her a long time to fall in love with me. In fact, she only ever told it to me right before she died.” His voice takes on a bitter tone. “Just before she died.”

A sharp breath in from the nursemaid, but Lance can’t hear it. Can’t hear anything, really. “But…but you saved her?” A little voice is wobbling. “You saved the princess, and that’s why we call you Sir Lance—”

“You shouldn’t call me Sir anything!” Lance shouts, abruptly standing up and knocking his chair over with a loud crash. “I couldn’t save her when it mattered the most. She’s your hero, not me. She has the statue. She’s the hero of the universe, she’s the one you need to look up to.” His voice is wavering, but he’s still yelling. “All I ever did was fall in love with a girl, because she was the only one that ever stayed. And even then, in the end, she left me, so that I could live in her place. She deserves it all, not me!”

Silence, that damned silence, echoes in the glass room. And then, all at once, about eight children burst into loud sobs, heaving and wet, which then sets off even more children.

And all at once, Lance realizes what he’s done.

He’s out of the room before the nursemaid can stun him with his own bayard, sprinting across the fields and back toward the castle. He passes several people who startle and shout, and he runs, runs harder and faster than he has in a long goddamn time, sprinting until his lungs ache, with no sense of direction or purpose, until he’s bursting into his bedroom, sides heaving, the curtains above his bed ripping from the wind he’s created.

His eyes fall on it, like a magnet drawing his attention.

The device that Keith left— _text me whenever you need to_ —resting on his pillow, the screen off, but it didn’t matter because the whole damn thing seemed to glow. And Lance, ancients fuck him right over, Lance looked at it, picked it up again, and threw it against the wall.

The satisfying _crack_ as it hit the wall with the force of a Yelmore was nearly enough to bring Lance back from where he was. But not quite.

Because he picked it up, and he threw it again, relishing in the noise that it made when it impacted. And again, and again, and again.

It’s an endless cycle, and Lance doesn’t notice the tears blurring his vision until he can’t see at all. His knees connect with the floor, shocks ricocheting up his legs as he lands, heavy. It’s like he’s lost all control as his fingers reach out on instinct, curl around the smooth surface of the device…

Wait.

Smooth?

Lance wipes at his face with the back of his hand, clearing his eyes until he can see the device clearly. There are no cracks, not damage signs, not even minor scratches on the surface of it. A thumb traces over it, to make sure that the optic nerve in his brain and his fingers were really on the same wavelength. But it’s entirely smooth, unbroken no matter how many times Lance chucked it against the wall.

“Fuck you, Kogane,” he mutters, turning it over in his hands and then pressing what he hopes to be the power button. It turns on, the screen flashing white before dimming into a background screen.

It’s a photo, and Lance stares at it for a long moment, positive that his mind is playing tricks on him.

There stands him and Allura, in front of the tree she had brought back to life, smiles—happy smiles—on both of their faces. The same photo that rests on his bedside table, the frame around that one smudged with thumbprints.

“Fuck you, Kogane,” he repeats, with a bit more passion this time.

The device opens without a passcode, and Lance blinks at it. Everything about it is exactly like his phone, back when he still had one. “God Keith, get with the tech age. ‘it’s like a phone, I think,’” he mocks.

He rocks back on his heels, legs folding underneath him until he sits crisscross applesauce, just like the children he had been with previously.

Lance takes some time exploring it, figuring out what Pidge programmed onto it. A few games, various means of communication, and even what Lance thinks to be a social media app. He considers tapping it, but thinks better when he can still faintly hear the crying.

There’re more contacts than Lance expects when he opens up the phonebook app. His mom, Veronica, a direct line to the Atlas (though how you would text an entire ship, Lance didn’t know), and of course, Pidge and Hunk. A few of them are starred, popping up in his favorites list, and Lance’s thumb hovers over his mama’s name. He hadn’t heard from her in a while…

The constricting in his chest tightens. He knows why he hasn’t heard from her in some time. He knows why he hasn’t heard from anyone in quite some time. His thumb moves away.

He leisurely scrolls through the list, unsurprised at a vast majority of the people in here. He gets all the way to the K’s before he stops again.

_Keith_

Just a single name. No contact photo, no last name, nothing besides a name and a phone number.

_Text me whenever you need to._

Lance clicks on the name, types out a single message, and then chucks the phone against the wall as hard as he can.

The phone bings immediately, and Lance’s head whips toward it.

It bings again, and Lance is scrambling for it, snatching it up and waking it up.

_Keith (2 messages)_

Lance slides the conversation open.

**Me: I did something bad**

_Keith: ??_

_Keith: did you yell at children bad or do I need to call space police and tell them you have an alibi bad??_

Lance stares at the screen, and then snorts. He didn’t expect a reply from Keith, not as fast as he got one. He assumed Keith would be off doing whatever important thing he was doing, and that Lance might hear from him hours, maybe even days later. Not seconds later.

He takes his time to type out a reply.

**Me: like, yelled at children bad. that’s exactly what I did actually**

Typing bubbles appear at the bottom of the screen, and then disappear, only to reappear.

_Keith: you actually, straight up, yelled at children?_

**Me: this was a mistake**

_Keith: no, keep talking to me_

_Keith: why’d you yell at children? I thought you liked the little ones?_

Lance sighs, looks up and out of his window, not that he can see much from his position on the floor. The sun is already dipping low in the sky, and it won’t be long now before the fireflies come out to dance.

**Me: it doesn’t really matter why I did it**

**Me: I just yelled at children. And it was bad. end of story**

Lance waits for Keith to push him about it. To his own surprise but no one else’s, Keith doesn’t.

_Keith: alright. So, no bodies to clean up after?_

Lance stares at it, the casual joke that Keith just sent him over text of all things. It’s too much.

The phone gets thrown against the wall and left there, Lance stripping off his shirt and loose pants before climbing into bed, burying his face in the pillow and wishing desperately that he could fall asleep, just to leave the world behind.

~~~

It’s a few days of menial busy work before Lance can text Keith again. Well, that’s not true. Before Lance feels any sort of urge to reach out to him.

His schedule now does _not_ include going to speak to the children, to tell them about Allura’s message and bring happiness to the universe. No, his schedule now includes more Kalternecker, and no more farmhand.

**Me: you’d think that one day I’d get used to the smell of manure. It never gets any better.**

_Keith: You brought Kalternecker to Altea?_

Lance leaves the message unanswered.

~~~

**Me: this really is exactly like a phone. You lied to me**

_Keith: I never lied to you_

**Me: It WoEks juSt lIke A PhonE**

_Keith: that’s not lying???_

~~~

**Me: altea smells weirdly like earth. Never thought it would, with all of the different flowers and nature and shit**

_Keith: Yeah, throws me off every time I visit_

**Me: you mean the total of three times you’ve visited?**

_Keith: I don’t really have a reason to visit_

_Keith: not for awhile, anyways_

Lance throws the phone against the wall and deletes the third message that bings in before he reads it.

~~~

**Me: you know these things are like, indestructible?**

_Keith: I never really thought to test it out, pidge just told me they were pretty sturdy_

_Keith: do I want to know how you found out?_

**Me: I may have like**

**Me: chucked it against the wall once or twice**

**Me: or like**

**Me: 80 times**

It’s the most they’ve talked in one go. Lance throws the phone again, but this time, just to the foot of his bed, staring off out into the distance of the window even as his phone bings several more times. But even that patters out, just like everything else.

~~~

**Me: I miss my mom’s cooking**

_Keith: fuck dude,_ I _miss your mom’s cooking_

**Me: that one dinner really made an impression on ya, huh?**

_Keith: god did it. That’s probably the best home cooked meal I’ve ever had_

**Me: ??**

_Keith: ??_

**Me: listen, I’m all for loving my mom and stuff and her cooking is great**

**Me: but there’s no way her cooking is the best you ever had**

**Me: you’ve met hunk**

_Keith: Hunk’s food is great, don’t ever get me wrong on that_

_Keith: but your mom’s was a home cooked meal. And I’ve not had a lot of those, so it takes the crown pretty easily_

Lance turns his phone off and sets it down on the nightstand.

~~~

Lance is having dinner with Coran again tonight, just like he does every night. The summer weather has finally begun to turn, to the point where it’s no longer muggy outside after sunset, and eating out in the twilight is pleasant, rather than uncomfortable.

There’s still warmth in the air, of course, but Lance dresses in long, loose pants, and an almost long sleeve top. He thinks it should qualify as three-quarters, but in all honesty, it just looks like the sleeves are shrunken in an unfortunate circumstance rather than high fashion.

Coran hums to himself, an Altean tune that sounds vaguely off key as he flips through slides on his holopad, making noises of assent as he reads whatever report that has just come in.

It distracts Lance—not that there was really anything else he was focusing on—and he continues to glance over at Coran until his patience finally meets its end.

“Whatcha flippin through?” he asks, trying to come off as nonchalant, and not at all succeeding.

Coran looks up, a pleasant smile on his face, mustache dotted with remains of his dinner. “Another report from our shortest paladin, updating me on the progress of the latest wormhole transporter.”

“Your design, right?”

Coran’s face morphs into surprise. “Why yes my boy! I didn’t think you were paying attention during that meeting.”

Lance has the decency to feel mildly guilty. “No, no, I was. It’s really cool.”

“Why, thank you!”

They each return to their previous actions, although Coran’s noises sound distinctly happier now.

“How are your correspondences coming?” Coran asks after some time has passed, catching Lance entirely off guard. The warmth of the evening disappears.

“My what?” he asks carefully.

“Your correspondences,” Coran repeats. “You know, with former paladin number four.”

“I’m not talking to Keith,” he mutters, not looking Coran in the eye.

“And I’m not Altean,” Coran replies, undeterred.

“Listen it’s not… it’s not anything, like, important. I just message him every now and then.”

Coran hums. “If you say so, my boy.”

Lance excuses himself without another word.

**Me: what star system are you in again?**

By now, Lance really shouldn’t be surprised at Keith’s rate of response, but given that it’s a typical dinner time and Lance distinctly remembers Keith saying that they were in the same solar system, he should, logically, be busy. But the response comes in just after Lance’s sent, and Lance is left bemused at the speed as he settles back against his pillows.

_Keith: Sector 3_

_Keith: Why?_

**Me: just checking**

_Keith: is something wrong? Do I need to swing by Altea?_

**Me: no dude, chill**

**Me: I just was wondering, that’s all**

_Keith: if you say so_

Lance doesn’t respond, the anxious ball in his gut twisting and turning. He can’t stop hearing Coran’s words, replaying over and over in his head. So what if he talked to Keith? They had been friends. All those years spent in space weren’t exactly for nothing.

It wasn’t weird.

It wasn’t weird.

So fuck, why did he feel like this?

~~~

**Me: what do the stars look like where you are?**

It’s the middle of the night, and Lance can’t sleep, and he’s already beaten every game that Pidge installed twice.

Keith should be asleep.

But he’s not:

_Keith: bright_

**Me: real great description there bud**

_Keith: it’s accurate_

_Keith: and I wasn’t done_

**Me: so then continue**

_Keith: I don’t recognize any of the constellations, which is weird, since we’ve been out here for so long, they should have some kind of pattern to them_

_Keith: I think all the planets must take up the beauty here, because all of the blue and purple and red milky ways that I fell in love with aren’t here_

**Me: I take it back. That was really fucking poetic**

_Keith: thanks_

_Keith: :)_

**Me: did you just??? Use an emoticon??**

_Keith: did you just?? Call it an emoticon??_

Lance ignores the barb.

**Me: I didn’t think you’d know what those were**

_Keith: okay so I lived in a shack for a year, stop making me out to be some kind of dumbass_

**Me: easy there dude**

_Keith: sorry_

_Keith: rough day today_

Lance knows he should ask what made it rough, knows it’s the polite thing to do. But that feels intimate, caring, in a way they haven’t been in two years.

Lance lets his phone slip from his hand to thump painfully down onto his chest, and stares up at the ceiling, not sleeping, even for a moment.

~~~

**Me: I think Kalternecker likes the flowers here better than she ever did on the castleship**

_Keith: cows don’t belong in space, so I’m not surprised_

**Me: u h wrong**

**Me: Kalternecker adored space**

**Me: she adored red**

**Me: even if she did shit in her once or twice**

**Me: oops**

_Keith: Kalternecker shat in red???_

_Keith: my poor baby_

Lance snorts.

**Me: that’s not even the worst part**

_Keith: oh god_

**Me: do you wanna know?**

_Keith: will I regret knowing?_

**Me: absolutely**

_Keith:…oh no_

**Me: Kosmo teleported in and ate it**

The typing bubbles appear, and then disappear, and stay gone for a full two minutes. Lance squirms from where he’s resting against the headboard. If Keith doesn’t respond, it’ll be the first time that’s ever happened, and it’ll be just like every single time Lance has ever done it to him. He doesn’t know how he feels about that; doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about it. The sheets atop him do nothing to ease the chill wrapping itself around his legs.

_Keith: I sincerely hope you’re lying_

**Me: 100% honesty**

**Me: would I ever lie to you?**

_Keith: I think I need to go and vomit._

_Keith: do you know how many times a day that wolf licks my face?_

Lance feels the corners of his mouth tug up.

**Me: sorry dude. But you had to know**

_Keith: im literally scrubbing my face as we speak_

**Me: oh my god**

**Me: you DO know how to wash your face!!**

_Keith: :(_

The corners of his mouth pull up even farther. And there, that same, uneven, splintering crack that forms in the pit of his stomach whenever the ball spills over, it’s there. Lance’s fingers are shaking, and he’s cold, so fucking cold.

But there’s the faintest trace of a smile on his face, and if he tilts the phone, he can see just the barest reflection of it.

**Me: goodnight Keith**

It’s abrupt, and out of place, but Lance doesn’t want to leave him on an unhappy face.

_Keith: goodnight Lance_

A crack splits through the air when the phone connects with the bedpost.

~~~

Lance awoke with a shudder coursing through his body, eyes snapping open and breathing ragged.

Lance woke up.

He doesn’t manage to fall back to where he was earlier in the night.

But at some point, for some amount of time, he had been asleep.

~~~

**Me: is your favorite color red?**

_Keith: no_

**Me: then what is it?**

_Keith: I don’t think I have a favorite color_

**Me: bullshit. Everyone has a favorite color**

_Keith: I don’t_

He’s unusually short with him tonight. Lance wondered if something happened with his humanitarian job today, but that same aching out-of-his-depth feeling comes back and he can’t bring himself to ask.

**Me: then pick one now**

_Keith: aren’t favorite colors supposed to be important to who you are? You can’t just pick on a whim_

**Me: I mean. Maybe? But it doesn’t matter. Just pick**

_Keith: why do you want to know?_

He’s pushing him. Pushing Lance to try a little harder than meaningless sentences that he sends him in the middle of the night.

**Me: because everyone has a favorite color, and I want to know yours.**

That’s as far as Lance can give in.

_Keith: blue_

**Me: but you’re the red/black paladin?**

_Keith: my armor doesn’t have to be my favorite color. I love Red, but I don’t love red_

**Me: why blue?**

The typing bubbles appear, then disappear. Come back, and leave just as quickly. A third time they make an entrance, and Keith types for some time before they go away again. Lance watches them, strangely focused, more focused on those three little gray dots than he has been about anything else in a long time. A warm summer breeze flutters his curtains, curls around his neck and makes goosebumps break out on his skin. Lance doesn’t feel any of it.

_Keith: It’s not just like blue. It’s this one specific shade of blue that I saw once when I was out on a solo mission, and it was like the first time I had ever seen that color. Ever since then, that shade of blue has been my favorite_

**Me: what shade? Can you describe it?**

_Keith: like the ocean, trapped in two small pools, shifting in the right light to something so clear and bright it’s like pits of the universe have fallen into them_

Lance can’t breathe.

_Keith: what about you? What’s your favorite color?_

The limits. Where were the limits he had set, they had set?

**Me: maroon. A deep, aching maroon. You’d think I’d hate it after all of the blood I’ve had to scrub out of my skin, but this color isn’t like blood. It’s something deeper, ya know? Like so maroon, it’s almost indigo. Which doesn’t sound right, but it is. been my favorite for some time now**

Lance waits for Keith to respond, sees the typing bubbles flash across the screen so briefly Lance wonders if he imagined them.

But Keith doesn’t respond to him that night.

No phone hits something it shouldn’t.

But Lance feels colder than he has in a while.

~~~

He’s having that dream again, the one where he’s back in the heart of the universe, back watching Allura hug Keith and whisper something in his ear. He knows it’s his turn next, and he doesn’t want it to be. Doesn’t want the goodbye she’s about to offer him.

She’s moving slowly, so slowly, but she still reaches him before he’s ready.

“Lance,” she whispers, and everything inside of him splinters, cracks spiderwebbing until the only thing holding him together is her hands on his arms.

“Allura, please,” he says to her, feels the way his tongue is like lead, too many emotions coursing through him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and Lance can’t do it.

“Please, no. I love you.”

“I love you too, Lance.”

She’s getting closer, her lips are about to brush his when she crumbles away in his hands, pink dust coating his fingers.

“ALLURA!”

He’s shaking as he bolts up in bed, hands fisted in the sheets, his brow coated in not dust but sweat.

It’s not her name that he whispers as he scrambles around blindly in the dark, looking for the device he knows he left somewhere in his bed.

When his fingers curl around it he almost cries in relief. He’s still shaking as he unlocks it, types out a message to the only person in his recently contacted list.

**Me: tell me about something**

A minute passes, and then another, but Keith hasn’t fired back his lightning quick response yet.

**Me: it doesn’t matter what**

**Me: just tell me about something**

**Me: please**

Two minutes have passed since Lance has sent that final message before Keith’s typing bubbles pop up, slow and sluggish as if he’s typing at a snail’s pace, choosing his words carefully. Or maybe he’s just tired. The time on the top of the screen read 1:24 am.

_Keith: I don’t actually like what I’m doing now_

**Me: what?**

_Keith: god that makes me sound terrible, doesn’t it?_

_Keith: but I hate what I’m doing_

_Keith: yeah, it’s meaningful work, and it needs to be done. These people have been through so much, the least I can do is give back to them. But I hate it. Seeing all of their faces, their weariness, their run-down planets. It’s heartbreaking._

_Keith: and I’m so fucking sick of it_

_Keith: I miss the times where we were doing something big, something fun and exciting. I miss racing around in Red, with her speed and going on missions and the adrenaline spike that I got with every narrow escape_

_Keith: yeah, this is great and all, but it’s not what I wanted to do when I was young. It’s not what I want to do now. But someone has to do it, and I guess that someone is me_

Lance has stopped shaking, clutching the phone with both hands, utterly still as he processes Keith’s words.

**Me: this isn’t what I want to do either**

Fuck, is he really saying this? His fingers start to tremble again and that stupid ball that lives in his chest throbs.

**Me: I don’t want to be here on Altea. Doing this. Being me.**

**Me: But I had to, ya know? I couldn’t go back to space without thinking of her, couldn’t ride in blue or red without wondering how she was doing, if she missed me. I couldn’t function doing what I always dreamed of doing because by the time I got to do it, it had become so twisted that it wasn’t what I wanted anymore**

**Me: but I don’t want to be here either. I hate it. With every fiber of my being, I hate it. I want to go, see places I’ve never seen before not because I need to save them but because I want to**

**Me: but I can’t, not with these stupid marks on my face and the weight of becoming who Allura would have wanted me to be still hanging on my shoulders**

**Me: she’s dead, but I can’t get rid of her expectations, no matter how much I want to**

Lance regrets the message the moment he hits send, the anxious ball morphing into something closer to what dread used to feel like. There’s no unsend button, no way to take it back. No way to unspeak the truth.

_Fuck, if that isn’t the truth nothing else is._

_Keith: looks like we’re both who we’re not meant to be_

**Me: I wonder if we somehow ended up in the wrong reality the first time we left blue**

_Keith: nah, I don’t think so. Too many things in this one that tells me life is exactly what the universe had planned for me_

**Me: fuck off, universe**

_Keith: hey, don’t insult Allura_

_Keith: say it nicely_

_Keith: “universe, if you would be so kind, please and gently, fuck the hell off”_

Lance stops shaking from the pit of his stomach, his shoulders rocking instead as he bites into his lower lip, holding back the manic laughter that threatens to spill out. If he lets go, he won’t ever be able to stop. Won’t ever be able to take back the way he lets go in this moment, the way he feels so fucking free for the first time in a long time.

A single peal of laughter escapes, and it’s like the world restarts.

**Me: I never knew you had such a keen sense of humor**

_Keith: I never knew you had such a good vocabulary_

**Me: touché**

_Keith: hey so this is probably a dumb idea but it’s late and impulsiveness is kinda my key quality_

_Keith: so just tell me if it is or whatever or just say no and I won’t_

_Keith: but I might swing by Altea for a few days soon, I need to work something out with coran_

_Keith: and you’re there too, so I figured we could maybe you know, catch up in person_

_Keith: like good ol times, you know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck, rivals to friends_

_Keith: it probably is stupid or whatever sorry_

**Me: when and where?**

_Keith: where I normally land, tomorrow at the earliest_

_Keith: wait, it’s after midnight. Today then_

**Me: I’ll see you today**

~~~

Lance doesn’t sleep after he tells Keith that he’ll see him today, too cold and too anxious to be as cold as he is.

Why.

One word floats around and around in his head, and it’s why.

Why does Keith care.

Why is he coming back today.

Why is he doing this.

Why

_Why why why why why why why—_

His thoughts are interrupted by a loud whoosh from his window, and Lance knows instinctively that a wormhole has just opened up in the sky. That a black ship with a purple insignia has entered through it, that Keith is on Altea.

_Keith is on Altea._

The ball grows tighter, his fingers feel…

His fingers feel warm.

He’s out of bed before he knows what’s happening, tugging on his boots before his actions process in his mind. Pulling on the closest shirt, a dash of deodorant, all on hyper-speed autopilot.

He’s almost out of the door when he stops. Looks at the framed photo on his bedside table. Looks at Allura, looks at the pair of them.

Smiles for her.

And then he’s out in the hallway, pushing his way through the corridors, bolting out of one of the many side doors of the castle.

Looking at the field where Keith has landed a total of three times before today.

Looking for Keith, his leader, his former copilot, former rival.

Looking for Keith, the friend that he didn’t realize just how much he missed.

As he stands there, a single figure crests the hill that marks the edge of the field, dressed in all black, ignoring the heat of the Altean summer.

_Keith._

The name to a face he recognizes all too well, the name to a face that sent texts between the stars, late at night when no one else should have been awake for Lance’s bouts of cold, the name to a face he sees smiling at him.

_Keith._

Keith doesn’t move any faster, doesn’t pick up his pace when he sees Lance, and Lance doesn’t move from where he stands.

It’d be weird to run out to him.

Right?

_Why why why why why_

Yeah, it’d be weird.

So here he stands, waiting for Keith to reach him, waiting, waiting, waiting.

A glare of light catches him in the corner of the eye and he squints, turning toward it.

Allura’s statue is smiling down at him, just like it always does. That same, not quite right smile, nothing like the ones she ever gave him.

And Lance feels cold again. Doesn’t feel the warmth in his fingers that danced across a phone’s keyboard. Doesn’t feel the warmth of the Altean sun, doesn’t feel Keith’s smile reach his eyes.

Doesn’t feel. Can’t feel.

_Not like this._

Keith is five feet away from him now, the smile that had been so bright fading, the awkwardness in his movements so fucking prominent that Lance almost screams.

_Not like this._

Keith could reach out and touch him. He’s so close now, his former rival, fellow paladin.

Friend.

Lance runs.

Runs faster and harder than the day he snapped at the children, runs faster and harder like a horde of angry Yelmore are at his tail.

Runs as fast as he can, as if he could somehow outrun every thought inside of his head.

_You deserve more than enough._

Tears stream down his face, and he hates the way he feels, hates being here, seeing her face every day, hates seeing his own face.

Hates that he hates it all.

Hates that he said yes to Keith so readily.

Hates that he knows Allura is right.

Hates that he wants to believe her, he wants to so badly.

Hates that he knows.

Hates it all.

Lance collapses in the dirt, no goddam clue where he is other than it’s another one of these fucking fields that Altea is so fucking full of, and sobs.

Every breath that he takes, every text that he sends, every smile every laugh every happy moment. Hates that he gets this and she doesn’t. Hates that he has a second chance and she doesn’t. Hates the thoughts inside his head that he can’t acknowledge, _won’t_ acknowledge.

Hates that he felt _happy_ when he saw Keith. He doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t deserve it when she’s still out there, seeing him from afar. Hates this feeling of betrayal that follows every move that he makes.

He hates himself most of all.

Because Lance knows the footsteps behind him, knows the pattern that they follow, the sharp inhale. "Lance..." 

He hates that he doesn’t hate it at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoping this goes over well and that you all don't hate me as much as Lance hates himself, cause oops that's a cliffhanger (also jesus Blondie, why the fucking angst unload? Chill the fuck out maybe?)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's stay on Altea is exactly how one expects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy this monster of a chapter because i have no self control whatsoever

The crunching of grass. Footsteps prodding closer. Silence, silence, silence.

No silence in his head.

No silence in his heart.

Silence, too much silence, that he used to be able to fill.

Silence, too much silence, that sounds so much louder than anything else ever did.

“Lance…” Words that aren’t silent at all, but that are spoken so softly that they were damn near close. The sobs he can’t hold back fill the rest of the space between them. “Oh, Lance…”

Footsteps, coming closer now, and Lance feels the ground shift under him as Keith crouches into a squat just an arm’s length away, close enough that either could reach out if they wanted.

“What do you need?”

 _Space. Space from you. Space from Altea. Space from_ myself _, from all of this pressure._

His mouth can’t form those words; his mouth won’t _let him_ form those words. His mouth only gapes as he struggles to take in air, hiccupping and making gross noises that the Lance of the past would be scandalized at.

“I’m sorry.”

Oh, so his mouth can form other words that aren’t involved in awful noises. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m _sorry._ ”

“Lance, what are you sorry for?” Keith shifts closer to him. Now, he would only need to lean over _just so_ to be on Keith.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Can I hold you?”

Lance’s head nodded without his mind giving it permission to do so, his body knowing what was needed even if his mind had yet to take a viewpoint on what it was feeling in this situation. It was too quiet. Too dull, up there, in the clouds that marked the space between his ears.

Keith hesitated for a second more, as if his own mind was having difficulties deciding if it was on this viewpoint or not, before two arms were being wrapped gently around him, holding him so delicately that Lance sobbed harder.

_He didn’t deserve this. Any of this._

Lance couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get air in any more than he could get air out. Couldn’t _breathe_.

“Hey, look at me,” Keith said, and then two firm hands were being removed from his shoulders and placed on each cheek, his head being tilted until Lance could see Keith, vaguely, through the film his tears had created. “Breathe.”

Lance tried to; he really did. But all that happened was a stuttering hiccup that made his chest hurt from the effort.

“Like this,” Keith said, and then took a slow breath in. Lance watched as his nostrils flattened, doing nothing to ease the trembling inside of him, a shaking feeling that was determined to find its way out through his fingertips.

Keith blew his breath out through his mouth, a thin channel of cool air that hit Lance square in the nose. He stopped shaking momentarily, just long enough that he was able to draw a shaky breath in. It didn’t last long enough for the air to come out again, and he heaved as it came out in a series of sharp exhales that made his chest and his head hurt.

“There you go,” Keith said, knowing Lance hadn’t done it at all correctly. Fuck, who the hell can’t breathe properly? _Me, apparently_. “Try again for me.”

The shaking subsided to a buzzing, and Lance was able to take another breath in. This time, he held it, and the exhale was significantly less sharp and staticky. “There you go,” Keith repeated, still holding his head in his hands. “One more for me.”

Lance took another breath in, the grasp Keith had on his face slackening. Lance angled his head, and managed to catch Keith’s eye. Keith stared openly back at him, violet eyes calm, expression soft. Lance held his breath for too long, releasing it all in a rush that left him feeling light headed.

“Better now?”

Lance nodded, still pretty sure that his mouth wouldn’t be able to form the words to say so. “I’m sorry,” he said for the umpteenth time, and Keith’s face cracked, before sewing right back up along the seams.

“You never need to apologize to me. Not for this.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance repeated, even still.

Keith’s face fluttered a second time, pain hidden as best he could, but not all the way. “It’s okay, Lance. You’re alright.”

_I’m not._

As if he could hear his thoughts, Keith followed it with, “and if you’re not alright now, you will be, someday, at some point. You don’t need to be okay now, if you’re not ready to be. All that matters is that you’re hanging on, one day at a time.”

Lance nodded, words reaching his brain even if they didn’t quite fit in with the rest of him yet. “Let’s get you back, alright?”

Lance nodded again, standing, with the help of Keith’s hands which had left his face in favor of grabbing him by the hands to help him up.

Keith waited until it looked like Lance was steady on his feet before slowly releasing him, similar to the way one would treat a stray they weren’t sure was about to bite them or not. Wary eyes watched him—which Lance dutifully ignored—nodding when the owner of the eyes asked if he was okay to walk.

It was quiet when they walked back, but it wasn’t silent. There wasn’t any more room for silence, not with all of the thickness and the doubts and the insecurities neither could speak about face to face. It was quiet, but it wasn’t silent, and the gray area was good enough for Lance.

Coran was nowhere to be found when they entered the castle, slipping in through the side door that Lance had left from earlier. Keith walked him all the way to his room, lingering outside the door, uncertainty spelled out all over his features. Lance watched him, no apologies or nods of confirmation to give him. Keith finally left him after several more moments of hesitation, a stiff back and a faulty gait as he left.

It wasn’t until Keith had rounded the corner and Lance was alone once more did he speak again, glancing over his shoulder briefly at the photo still sitting on his nightstand and then right back to the spot where Keith had been.

“I’m so sorry, Keith.”

He wasn’t apologizing for the same thing as before, and as if the world knew it, the skies opened up with the thick gray clouds that had rolled in on their way back, and the universe cried.

~~~

Pebbles, skittering next to his window, drew him from the state he was in. Lance wasn’t really sure you could call it sleep, but it wasn’t exactly awake either. A second set of pebbles—or, more likely, roof shingles—clattered against his window, and Lance blinked his eyes open wearily. The rain was still thrumming, though it had lessened from a downpour into a drizzle. A third set came raining down, and Lance huffed.

He turned over onto his side from his back, curling up as he stared out the window, waiting for more debris to come down. At first, there was nothing. But the longer he watched, the longer he waited, there was more; just the smallest bit, always managing to tap just so on his window, or, if it missed the pane, clattering on his windowsill.

The rain shower had brought cold to the room, colder than he was accustomed to. The coldness within—that he could live with. Anything else was not acceptable. He had grown up in Varadero after all.

Four blankets were piled atop him, and while they staved off the atmospheric cold, there was nothing they could do to warm him internally. It took a lot more than fleece to piece together the fragments of a person.

A crack of lightning split across the sky, followed by a yelp, and then a crash of thunder. The brief flash of light had illuminated the photo, and Lance stared at it, feeling something that couldn’t be described as a feeling at all. It was a distinct lack of emotion, a devoidness that was felt as deep as someone could go. It was nothing and everything, a cacophony of sounds in an utterly empty room. It was a single violin player on a lonely stage, a single patron sitting in the back row of an empty theatre, listening to the rise and fall of music that ached as much as it swelled. It was everything Lance was, and everything he never wanted to be.

Lance wiggled free a hand, goosebumps breaking out on his skin at the sudden lack of warmth. Stiff fingers curled around the picture frame, glass cool to the touch. He brought it close to his face, his nose brushing the figure standing bright, smiling. There should be tears, there should be more than this ache inside of him, there should be _something_. Rage, anger, hope, desolation, _something._ But when he looks at her, pressed up against his nose so he can make out her soft white hair in the darkness of his bedroom, there’s nothing and everything.

More rocks rattle, and Lance has a feeling it will be the last set. The rain is picking up, a steadier patter against his skull, a cold wind and wetness soaking his windowsill on the inside.

The photo goes back against the nightstand, and Lance rolls to his other side, away from her face, away from his window.

He’d give anything to feel the silence again.

~~~

He must have fallen asleep, since he wakes to the noise of someone rapidly, violently, sneezing. A set of four, and then a harsh sniffle, and Lance waits for something more.

Something never comes.

~~~

Keith has a red nose and bloodshot eyes when Lance makes it to breakfast with Coran. Coran sits at the head of the table, Keith on his left, and Lance slides quietly into his seat on Coran’s right.

Coran and Keith are in deep conversation about something, and Lance tunes it out the best he can. It’s more unimportant stuff, shit about travel and resources and other things Lance probably should care about, you know, as a Paladin of Voltron and such, but it’s early, he hasn’t had any of his substitute caffeine, and he really, really, does not care.

A girl brings out his breakfast and Lance mutters a quiet but sincere thank you, and digs in to his egg substitute. Everything is substitute here, on a planet that isn’t his own with food that isn’t his and never will be his and people that look like him but _aren’t him._

Altea isn’t for him. It never was, and it never will be.

Keith interrupts his thoughts before they can spiral any farther.

“I’ve never seen storms anywhere like that on Earth,” he says, not looking at Lance but instead to the general public that is the combined three of them.

Lance gives a semblance of a snort. “That’s cause you come from the Midwest. You got tornadoes. Back in Cuba, there were storms like that, actually no—worse¬ than that—on the daily. You wouldn’t have made it a day in hurricane season.”

Keith does look at him then. “I’ve fought off countless mercenaries and people trying to kill me. I think I can withstand a storm.”

“Not if you’re complaining about those showers last night. Those barely qualified as spring showers.”

“Oh please, rain is nothing compared to active volcanoes. And all of the other insane weather and dangers I’ve face.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Oh look at me, I’m so tough, I can fly in a super lion and then cheer when I come out alive, even though I had no chance of actually dying!”

They continue to fire back at each other, each comeback more ridiculous than the last, no true heat in anything they say. Lance doesn’t catch on to what’s happening until Keith’s mouth is tugging upward and the expression he’s wearing is fond rather than playfully amused. Perhaps even relieved.

Coran’s gaze is on him, the man’s face inscrutable behind the mustache.

And Lance knows what’s happening. Realizes it, and the atmosphere changes, thick and heavy while the gray clouds roll in overhead.

He clears his throat, chair squeaking as he abruptly stands up from the table. “I’m done,” he says awkwardly, feeling stiff and gangly in a way he hasn’t since puberty began.

Two sets of eyes watch him as he makes his swift exit, ten long fingers curling into tight fists at his side, a nose red, but not from the rain.

~~~

Lance is sitting in yet another one of Altea’s amass of fields, Kalternecker in the grass beside him, when Keith found him next, about two hours post breakfast.

“Thought I might find you out here,” said the voice, stopping a few feet behind the pair.

Lance shrugged. “It is a Marco after all.”

Keith’s frown practically had a voice of its own. “I thought it was a Marca?”

“Fuck if I know. I wanted my cow, so with my cow I shall be.” The footsteps picked back up again, and Keith appeared in his peripheral. “The farmhands have kind of let me do whatever, at this point.”

“Were they stopping you before?”

Lance thinks back to the incident. “Nah, just following orders. They’re more relaxed now.”

Keith nods, thinking. “You haven’t yelled at any more children, right?”

“No. They haven’t…they haven’t exactly let me near them since that one day.” Lance glances over at Keith to see if he can gauge his judgement, but Keith is open, relaxed. Or trying very, very hard to appear so.

They sit, each in their own little bubble with a cow between them, and as if Kalternecker senses something they don’t, she moos, loud and pissed off, standing up with a swish of her tail, and walking a few feet away to munch on grass.

“How long are you here for?” Lance asks, not really wanting to hear the answer. There his body goes again, moving on its own accord with no input of rational thought from his mind.

“A few days,” Keith replies, and Lance feels like he just swallowed a rock. And then the rock grows bigger, because he doesn’t know why it was there in the first place. “Maybe more, if Coran needs me around here. Some of the details can be kind of tricky—we are dealing with intergalactic matters—so it might take some time to work out.” His fingertips aren’t cold. “Why?”

Lance shrugs, inner turmoil remaining inner. “Just wondering, that’s all.”

The subject changes drastically. “Have you heard from anyone else?”

Lance shifts, the grass blades poking at him through his thin pants. “Not really.” He adamantly avoids looking over at Keith; he doesn’t want to see the surprised look on his face.

“Hmm, thought you would have. But that was the point of the phone, letting you reach out without anyone else forcing their company on you.”

Lance does look over at that. Keith is watching the cow, the open face gone—replaced with something nonchalantly guarded. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keith replies, and turns his head to look over his shoulder, locking eyes with Lance. “It hurts to lose someone. I should know—I’ve gone through it more times than I can really count, three times if we’re counting the ones that really impacted me. You don’t want a bombardment of everyone asking if you’re okay. Sometimes, you just want to be left alone, and it’s important that you’re the one to come to others when you need it. Smothering is only good from like, ages zero to one point five.”

“Is that what you’re trying not to do? Smother me?”

“Does it feel like I am? Smothering you?”

Lance pauses, the answer on the tip of his tongue. The honesty slips through. “No.”

Keith watches him, their eyes still locked, before they’re interrupted by a beeping. He glances down at his wrist watch and Lance can’t help the wash of disappointment. “Sorry, Zethrid is trying to hail me over something.” Keith stands up, and the hesitates. “I’ll see you later, Lance. You know where I’ll be if you ever want to find me.”

And then he’s gone, and Lance is left alone in a field with a cow and too many flowers.

~~~

He keeps his normal schedule, even if he does end up glancing over his shoulder more than once to see if a certain shadow was lingering behind him. It never was, and Lance rolled his eyes more than once, thinking about whatever was so damn important between Coran and Keith couldn’t really be _that_ important.

Night falls, and Lance stops one of the palace employees to have his dinner sent to his room. As much as he looked for that shadow, he didn’t really want it right now.

Dinner is the same as it typically is; bland food that resembled potatoes and some kind of meat substance. It tasted a little like steak, if steak and pulled pork had a love child.

Something clattered on the floor when he sat down on the bed, and Lance paused, a forkful of dinner hanging in front of his open mouth as he tried to guess what had fallen off. The forkful went in, and as he chewed, he set the plate down somewhere safe, and leant over the edge of the bed to look for what had evidently fallen off.

The phone sat there, screen dark, still not a single crack on it.

Scooping it up, he set it down somewhere in the folds of his sheets, and picked up his dinner to resume eating.

But it was like the damn thing had a beacon coming out of it, red and yellow cartoon exclamation points above it saying, ‘important! important!’.

Lance picked it up again, turning it on and unlocking in. No new messages from Keith (no major surprise there) and Lance typed out one to him. Just a quick one, and Lance shut it off and tossed it back into the vastness of the sheets.

It dinged after two more forkfuls of potato, and Lance considered the spot where it was for a moment before reaching for it.

**Lance: what did Zethrid need?**

_Keith: she’s whiny, something about her and Ezor getting into a fight again, and she’s coming to me for love advice_

**Lance: you????**

_Keith: first of all, rude_

_Keith: second of all, that was my reaction_

_Keith: that line is supposed to be used for important things, not that. But ya know, whatever keeps the crew happy and away from mutiny_

Lance’s fingers danced over the keyboard without actually typing anything, as he considered the thought that rested heavy in his head. Curiosity and impulsiveness were winning, in a land where it was so much easier to talk over text and not feel the burn of someone’s eyes into yours as they scrutinize your question for its real meaning.

 **Lance: and what about this line? What’s the purpose of this**?

Keith’s response isn’t immediate. The typing bubbles don’t even come up to signal that he is in the process of responding. It’s just…utter silence.

And Lance is fixated. On this lack of a response, that is a response in itself. Fixated on the question that he asked and unable to tear his eyes away from the screen.

Keith’s response chimes in without any typing bubbles at all.

_Keith: for whatever you want it to be._

Lance’s jaw flutters as he reads it, then rereads it.

_For whatever you want it to be._

Lance isn’t sure either of them knows what they want it to be, or even, what it is. But it’s an honest answer, more open than Lance would have been able to be.

**Lance: when did we get like this?**

Keith doesn’t ask him to clarify.

_Keith: the minute we realized we weren’t just players in a war. That we were the main players, the queen in the corner. When we realized we might not come home. When we did come home, and home wasn’t home. That’s when we became like this._

**Lance: I don’t want to be like this**

_Keith: me neither_

His dinner was done, meaning it was time for Lance to go about his skin care regimen, dutifully ignoring his reflection in the mirror, not wanting to see how bright those damned marks were. But his bed was comfier, and he didn’t want to leave it.

He settled back against his pillows, legs curling up to tuck against his rear, back popping as he stretched.

Before Lance really knew what was going on, sleep was finding its way to him, gently closing his eyes and dragging him off into nonexistence, even if just for a few hours.

~~~

It was Lance that found Keith the next morning, standing on the doorstep to the castle and looking lost.

Lance tucked his hands in his pockets as he sauntered over to him, Keith having not noticed his presence until Lance was standing directly behind him.

“Looking for something specific?”

Keith jumped a foot into the air, and Lance had the decency to feel mildly embarrassed at having startled him. Only mildly, though, because the blush of surprise colored his cheeks nicely. The coloration disappeared when Keith saw who it was, now looking mildly ticked off, folding his arms over his chest.

“Just… looking,” he said at last, casting his eyes around the nearby fields. “Wondering if this is all there is to Altea.”

Lance shrugged. “As far as I can tell the planet was mainly agricultural, with technological hubs here and there. They mined for natural substances rather than anything else. Alfor was a weird exception, even if he did take the universe into the next age of technology.”

“You know what I find interesting?” Keith asked. Possibilities ran through Lance’s mind, but he didn’t have a chance to voice them before Keith answered his own question. “That we only ever see part of a planet—one city, one town, one sector—and we assume that one specific place represents the entire planet. Planets are fucking massive, dude. But if only one place falls, we assume the rest of the planet has fallen, when it could just be that one sector. Like, take London for example. If London fell, sure, that would be drastic for Earth. But one city—even an influential one—does not mean the entire planet threw up its hands and said ‘well, fuck it, guess that’s it for us’. It’s just an inconsistency that I’ve found, that’s all.”

Lance paused to consider what he was saying. It was a pretty large inconsistency, and the more he thought about it, the more books and shows he realized used that as a plot device.

“That’s like… really, weirdly accurate.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Is that what you spend your nights lying awake, thinking about? The great Keith Kogane lies awake at night, finding inconsistencies in everything we’ve ever done?”

Keith shifted on his feet, his crossed arms tucking tighter against his chest. “Not all the time,” he muttered.

Lance was about to ask what he thought about the rest of the time when Keith spoke. “On that note, I wanted to know if it would be possible for me to explore Altea. It is a large planet, and I’d like to get more of a feel for it. Ya know, see the sights and all.”

Lance snorted at the thought, and Keith turned to him, offended. “I’m just surprised at how much you’ve changed. The Keith I knew before wouldn’t have cared about exploring the lands and seeing the sights. It’s just odd, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not exactly the people that we used to be. And how would you know? Maybe I did like doing exactly that before we got involved in the war, and there just wasn’t time or opportunity to do so. It wasn’t like I could ask Zarkon to stop trying to kill us for a few hours, so I could explore the local culture.”

There was tension beginning between the two of them, and Lance shifted again. “That’s fair.”

And now there was silence in the tension. Lance cleared his throat, doing his best to ignore all the thoughts in his head for a moment, trying to decide without the influence of everything that could go wrong spelling out in the back of his mind. “There’s a little cove not too far from here, if you want to start with that.”

Keith paused, eyes focusing in on Lance. “Yeah?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think it’s on an ocean or anything, probably just a river, but it’s still a pretty good place to start.” And here’s where the tension, the screaming of betrayal lay. “I could take you there, if you’re interested.”

Because he could do that. He could, because Keith was his friend and he was here, and Lance was allowed to enjoy time with friends. This, in no way, was a betrayal to anyone.

So why did it feel like one?

Keith answered, saving Lance from the guilt that was beginning to eat away at him. “That would be great. I just have to let Coran know where I’ll be, so he doesn’t try and make any meeting plans, but yeah. I’d love to, Lance.”

Lance’s cheeks grew warm. “No—no problem, man,” he stuttered out, feeling like a sixth grader being confronted by his first crush all over again.

Keith watched him for a moment longer before giving a small wave and walking back the way Lance had come, and Lance stood there, looking at the spot he had been, wondering why his heart was beating so fast.

~~~

They were walking along a beaten, dirt path, down to a place Lance had only ever been once. The last time he had walked like this, several children had been vying for his attention, and he was laughing as he recounted stories of Varadero, trying to pretend like he didn’t miss it, didn’t miss the way he had planned to take Allura there, didn’t miss the missed opportunities.

This time, Keith was by his side, shielding his eyes against the Altean sun, muttering something about the state of everything.

“Listen, you’re the one that wanted to do this,” Lance snapped, aggravated.

He could feel Keith’s gaze as it pinned him. “Easy there,” he drawled. “Don’t let the lizard bite your ass.”

Lance nearly faltered in his step, trying to process Keith’s words. Keith noticed, and slowed as well. “ _What_ did you just say to me?” Lance asked, trying to keep his cool.

“Don’t let the lizard bite your ass?” Keith repeated hesitantly.

Lance lost it. He laughed so hard that he fell to his knees in the dirt, sides heaving as he laughed silently, tears beginning to form in his eyes. It was utterly quiet as he made no noise, mouth open and eyes screwed shut.

“Lance? Lance, are you okay?”

Lance sucked in a breath of air and then laughed properly, the sound breaking through Keith’s worried questions. “Don’t let—don’t let the lizard—” he couldn’t even finish his sentence, he was laughing that hard.

Keith chuckled, only after a few moments of Lance’s loud guffaws had passed. “It really wasn’t that funny, Lance.”

Lance nodded, still too busy laughing to assure him that yes, that statement was one of the funniest fucking things he had heard in a long ass time.

“Dude, you need to breathe,” Keith said, but there was laughter in his own words.

Lance was winding down now, laughter dissolving into small chuckles, one hand brushing away the tears from his eyes until he could see Keith clearly. The other boy was squatting down next to where Lance kneeled in the dirt, dimples on full display and eyes bright, his own smile still playing on his lips. _Fuck me over_ , Lance thought, and then immediately panicked at the thought.

Keith reached out a hand, and oh, there went his thought process _again_ as Keith helped to stand them both up. He had a habit of doing that; breaking through Lance’s inner spiral without even realizing, grounding him to the present moment.

“Come on, I want to see this cove.”

~~~

It was another twenty minutes before they reached the cove, but it was worth it to hear Keith suck in a breath, to feel the ocean-esque breeze on his face.

God, how he missed places like these.

“How are you not down here every day?” Keith asked, but didn’t wait for an answer as he walked ahead of Lance, kicking off his shoes the minute he reached the sand and dropping his towel down next to it.

Lance watched him, walking at a much slower pace, fighting back the surge of memories that threatened to overwhelm him.

Much of the area was sanded, a few little grass bits poking up here and there. It would have been too hot to visit on a day like today, but a rocking overhang provided the perfect amount of shade to sit back and relax in, the water providing the rest. Clear and blue, Lance knew it was no match for the ocean, but it was damn near close. Especially for Altea.

Keith waded in up to his knees, shucking off his shirt and tossing it behind him. It floated down, bound to fall in the water, but Lance sped up, catching it before it could, his own shins now submerged in the cool blue.

“I had no idea you liked to swim,” Lance said, retreating until he stood under the outcropping, arms folded, one hand still clutching Keith’s shirt.

Keith shrugged, back to Lance. “Back in Texas, never really got the chance. When I moved to Arizona, even less. But there was a time my dad had taken me out to the Gulf, and we spent a week there. Every single day I was in that water, until I learned how to swim. Fuck, it’s been what? Thirteen years since then?”

“You haven’t been in the ocean in thirteen years?” Lance asked in a low voice. Keith glanced at him over his shoulder, sunlight creating a weird shadow over his face.

“Is that a problem?” Keith asked defensively.

“I just can’t imagine going without for so long. Those years in space almost killed me from how much I missed the ocean, the beach.”

Keith didn’t ask him why he had only come here the once, if he missed it so much, for which Lance was grateful. He didn’t want to think about that right now, didn’t want to feel beyond the summer sun slowly warming him up from the inside out.

Keith was wading out further, and Lance watched him, content to just sit back here on the sand. He wasn’t sure what memories the water would dredge up, wasn’t sure he wanted them right now.

There were too many things he wasn’t sure about right now, and he didn’t need any more of them.

“Are you gonna join me or what?” Keith asked, having surfaced from dunking his head under the water. His dark hair was slicked back, well past his shoulders now. Lance wasn't at all wondering how soft it had become.

“I think I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy the view,” Lance called back, sitting down and settling against his elbows in the sand.

Keith paused, rising further out of the water, rivulets trailing down his chest. Lance averted his eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yup.”

“Wrong answer.”

Keith came charging out of the water, toned thighs pumping as he darted across the sand, spraying water all over Lance, who yelped at the unexpected sensation. There was no time to think or even protest before Keith was scooping him up, and walking right back to the water, before gracelessly opening his arms and dumping Lance into the cool substance.

Lance shrieked, swallowing water, spluttering as he surfaced.

“What the _fuck_?”

Keith just laughed at him.

“I could have had my phone in my pocket!”

“You and I both know that it’s in your bedroom, because you only text me when you’re most alone. And even if it was, you found out that it was virtually indestructible. It would have been fine.”

Lance glared at him with the accusation, and Keith just grinned.

“You’re the worst.”

“So I’ve been told. Something about impulsiveness being my downfall.”

“Asshole,” Lance muttered under his breath, watching Keith wade out to join him. "I thought you were supposed to be mature, adult Keith."

"Nah, we both knew that was just an act for the higher ups."

Lance huffed. "Damn right."

“Now, are we going to enjoy this day or what?”

~~~

Lance didn’t want to admit it. He really, really didn’t.

But the day spent at the cove with Keith was one of the best he’s had in two years. The other boy was sunburnt beyond belief while Lance had only tanned, other than a slight pink coloring on his nose. They had laughed, and despite the chill of the water, Lance felt warmer than he had since Allura had passed.

Now he was in his bedroom, freshly showered and clad only in boxers, staring up at the canopy stretched above his bed, watching it flutter in the slight wind coming in from the window.

His sheets were strewn about around him, his body was relaxed, but nothing about his mind was quiet. Nothing about his heart felt like it was supposed to.

It had been like it was before, with the two of them in the castleship pool, trying to figure out how the gravity worked and each staying in their own sides the first few times. Eventually, they had begun to share the space, and that was when their conversations had started. Lance learned much about Keith in those hours spent upside down on the roof of the pool room, and Keith had learned just as much about Lance.

Time had passed between then and now, time where they had both grown and one of them had fallen in love. One of them had gone off into the ether, leaving the other behind. Both of them had grown away from who they used to be.

Today, though, they were like they had been before. And Lance couldn’t figure out how he felt about it. The one person—well, two, really—that he would have talked it over with weren’t available. He was stuck here, alone in his bedroom, alone with his thoughts.

This wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to keep replaying each moment over in his mind, wasn’t supposed to be looking for something that wasn’t there.

But here he was, doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do.

_Keith was splayed out on his stomach, grains of sand sticking to his skin._

_“You know, it really would be better for you to lay on a towel.”_

_Keith didn’t move when he replied. “I like the feeling of the sand. Warm.”_

_“You’re gonna get it in your mouth.”_

_“Yum.”_

_“That’s disgusting.”_

_Keith chuckled into his arm pillow, and Lance felt his stomach flop._

_“Thanks for taking me out here with you today.”_

_“No problem. It was fun.”_

_“I missed days like these with you.”_

I missed you, _is what Lance heard._

_“Me too.”_

It didn’t mean anything. They were friends, just how Lance wanted them to be, just how Keith wanted them to be.

Lance wished his mind would shut up.

_You deserve more than enough._

This was enough. Being here, with Keith, doing what they had done without all the bloodshed in-between. This was enough.

Lance didn’t want to think about what would happen when Keith returned to his job, when he only had a black device as big as his hand to create the feeling of someone with him.

Rocks clattered on his windowsill, and Lance snapped his head over. He didn’t think before he was out of bed, tugging on a shirt and not bothering with shoes as he shoved his window up the rest of the way, allowing him to climb out of it.

He stuck his head out the window and was about to maneuver the rest of his body out when several pebbles hit him on the forehead. “Hey, fuck off, I’m on my way up.”

Silence answered him.

And then—

“Oh shit, my bad. That’s your window?”

Lance frowned, pausing halfway up the wall.

“Are you telling me I’m not wanted?”

The cold feeling blossomed in his core.

“No, not at all. Just didn’t realize where I was.”

It shriveled back up, and Lance continued his way up.

Popping his head over the lip of the roof, he found Keith with his knees tucked up against his chest, resting his chin on them, and a pile of rocks next to him, one hand curled around a small pebble.

Lance raised an eyebrow when he saw them, and Keith lifted one blameless shoulder.

A moment later, and Lance was seated next to him, in much the same position as Keith. The wind was stronger up here, and thin boxers and a shirt did nothing to protect against the outside cold.

They sat in silence, each in their own thoughts. Lance gazed up at the stars, the two still hanging brightly in the sky, a third a distance away from the pair.

“I’m thinking about extending my trip here.”

Lance slid his gaze from the sky and over to Keith. The other boy was staring down at his rock pile, fingers still worrying the same rock Lance had seen when he first arrived on the roof.

“Why’s that?”

Keith sniffled. “Just cause. I need a break from everything up there, and Coran still has all these things he wants me to go over. I’m needed here more than I’m needed there.”

Lance nodded, watching Keith’s fingers. “Understandable.”

They lapsed into silence once more.

It stretched on, as Lance didn’t think about anything at all, his mind utterly quiet next to Keith, eyes fixed on the stars. He had been across countless galaxies, seen innumerable spreads of stars, and still, they captivated him. Not with the longing he once held, about holding a star in his palm and feeling the universe at his fingertips, but with a focused yearning about wanting to find a home in the infiniteness, to feel like he mattered in the span of time. He knew he did, with all that happened in the war, but as he looked at the stars that still shone despite the tragedies they had outlived, Lance still couldn’t figure out if he truly belonged in them, if they deserved his heart in their collection of forgotten lovers.

“Do you still miss her?”

Lance didn’t answer immediately, trying to formulate the best way to say it.

“All the time,” he whispered at last. “It’s funny. I lived seventeen years of my life without her in it, and then suddenly, now, it’s like she was all that mattered to me. I’ve lived longer without her than with her, but I don’t know how to keep living since I’ve lost her. It should be easy to move on. Maybe not easy, but I should be able to move on. But I can’t. I can’t look in the mirror without seeing pieces of her. I can’t look at the stars without knowing that she rests up there, watching us. I can’t be who I want to be without feeling like I’m disappointing her. And it’s been two years. Two fucking years.” Lance’s mouth works, but no words come out. “I think I miss her memory more than I miss her.” This. This is what’s been so hard to say for so long.

“I miss her, yeah, but I think I’m ready to let go,” he whispers. “I want to let go. I am ready to let go. But I can’t pry my fingers off the lip of the cliff just yet.”

Keith doesn’t answer him, and Lance can’t bring himself to look over. He’s not sure he’d be able to take it if Keith was asleep and Lance had just bared his soul to only himself.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“How come you’ve never dated anyone in the time that I’ve known you? Everyone else has. Everyone found someone. How come you didn’t?” _How come you’re sitting on this roof, with me, and not in the arms of someone you love?_

“I fell in love,” Keith whispers, and Lance has to strain his ears to listen.

“What happened?”

“I fell in love with someone who deserved all there was to give, and all I had to offer was my heart.”

Lance should have broken a long time ago, should have split down the middle and spiderwebbed along the cracks as he spoke about Allura. But Keith’s confession is what does it to him.

“ _Keith_ ,” he says, voice cracking.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Keith swiping at his eyes. “I told myself that it was okay. I told myself that if they were happy, I would be happy too. Even if they weren’t happy with me. I told myself I would be okay.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not.” Keith takes a shuddering breath in. “But I’m learning to be okay. Because if they are, I’m alright. I’ve known for a long time that love wasn’t due to be mine, and I’ve come to terms with that. It’s not my reality to be loved the way I love.”

Keith is moving before Lance can react, his entire pile of rocks skittering down the roof. Keith walks on feather light feet, at the lip before Lance can call out to stop him and jumping down.

Lance stares at the spot where Keith was, and doesn’t move until the sun kisses the night goodbye, reeling in his own head.

~~~

Neither of them speaks about their rooftop confessions the next morning. Lance waits for it to come, waits for an opening to talk about it, but Keith smiles at him like nothing’s changed as they each go about their respective days.

Keith disappears with Coran sometime around noon, and Lance stands on the doorstep, looking to where the children have their lessons.

He walks slowly, taking his time to figure out what he wants to say to them, if he wants to do this at all.

But when he reaches there and sees the twins that remind him so much of him and Rachel when they were young, Lance knocks softly on the door and asks if he can teach them about Allura’s message.

~~~

A few more days of Keith being here turns into a week. A week turns into two. Two weeks turns into a month.

They find each other on the roof more often than not, their phone conversations replaced by in person, even if they don’t look at each other while they speak and the distance between them feels like nothing and everything.

Lance finds himself with the children again, lighter and happier than the days he spends doing nothing but walking through fields, waiting for Keith to join him. They slip down to the cove once or twice more, and Lance relishes in those days, ignores the tumult in him when he’s alone in bed each night afterwards.

Finds himself looking for Keith everywhere he goes.

He knows this can’t last forever. Knows that he needs to return to reality someday, to a place where nights and days like these don’t exist, to a timeline where he’s alone and cold and longing.

He just didn’t think it’d be tonight.

They’re sitting on the roof, Keith sans pile of rocks, each alone together.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Lance stills from where he was picking at stray threads on the cuff of his sleeve. “You’re what?”

“I’ve gotta. Zethrid is barely holding her own up there—something about being better fitted as a pirate lesbian than bringing hope and humanity to the universe as a humanitarian. And I need to go back. I’ve been here for too long.”

Lance turns to look at him, only to find Keith watching him with that openly guarded expression, like he’s ready to get hurt but won’t show it when it happens.

“But…” He can’t say the words in his head. Can’t voice the objections he desperately wants to; can’t say how he feels because he shouldn’t feel that way at all.

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispers.

“You never need to apologize to me. Not for this.”

“I’m still sorry that I have to leave.”

Lance watches him, feels the sincerity in his violet eyes, feels the pulse of the red star above his head, feels the dimming of the blue one.

“Come with me,” Keith whispers, voice barely distinguishable, and Lance can’t tell if it’s because of the roaring in his own head or the quiet of Keith.

He wants to. _He wants to._

But this is Altea. He’s supposed to be here, as close to the woman he loves as possible. He’s supposed to be here, carrying out the message and duties the writers of fate have determined for him.

He belongs here, to Allura.

“I can’t,” he says back, everything in him colder than it’s ever been, almost as cold as when she died, almost as cold as when he did. _So very, very close._

Keith nods like he understands, and Lance nearly screams.

"Just thought I’d offer.”

They watch each other for another moment, so close, _so fucking close,_ and Lance distantly recalls this as a moment when one of them should lean in, when a brushing of lips and gentle goodbyes were supposed to happen. He banishes that notion almost as quickly as it had appeared, eyes mapping out the slope of Keith’s nose, tracing the planes of his cheeks.

“I should probably go and pack,” Keith says softly, not moving.

Lance nods, throat choking down the words he still can’t say, holding back the desperation he holds for his friend to stay here, with him.

Keith stands, as silent as ever, and makes his way down the roof. He jumps off without so much as a backward glance, or even a wave goodbye.

Keith leaves his life yet again.

~~~

Lance doesn’t sleep at all.

He tossed and turned in the bed he crawled into moments after he was sure Keith was truly gone, stared up at the canopy and the photograph he knew by heart.

He tossed and turned when the sun rose.

He tossed and turned when he heard the footsteps draw close to his door, hesitate for a heartbeat or two, and then walk away again.

He tossed and turned when he heard Coran’s loud goodbye.

He tossed and turned when he heard the roaring of the ship start up.

He tossed and turned and tossed and turned and then couldn’t take it anymore.

Lance was out of bed, lacking shoes and dignity as he sprinted across the castle, out through the side door that always seemed to mark his exits in situations like this, sprinted all the way to where Keith’s ship loomed, all black and purple and _Keith._

He skidded to a halt, seeing Keith with one hand hanging at his side, the other above his head, wrapped around a support pole.

“Take me with you,” Lance says, and it comes out as a rush of air.

But it’s enough.

Keith turns, that same startled red blush blossoming over his features. “Lance?”

“Take me with you,” he repeats, taking a step closer to where Keith is.

Keith’s hand slowly unwinds from the pole, and he turns fully around, facing Lance in his Blade suit, still fitted perfectly to his sculpted body.

“Where do you want to go?” It’s the earnest, open look on Keith’s face that stops him from walking closer, and Lance knows. He knows, deep in his core, and the words are out of his mouth before he even has a chance to think.

“I want to go nowhere,” he whispers, and Keith stills, face shuttering, already rapidly closing off, but Lance blazes on. “I want you to take me to nowhere, where I’m just another face in the crowd, where they don’t know me and I don’t know them. I want to be invisible, Keith. I don’t want to be responsible for what I did and didn’t do, for the people I did and didn’t save. Take me to nowhere, Keith. Please.”

Keith watches him for a moment more before taking a halting step closer, holding out his hand. Lance looks at it, eyes flicking up to Keith’s face, before taking it and clasping tight, just like he had done so many times before. “I’ll take you nowhere, Lance. as long as I’m with you.”

“Then let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hnnnnggg this is interesting wow okay good job following the word count consistency (lies. all of it, lies). 
> 
> anyway
> 
> on a serious note, i hope you all enjoyed this update (sorry it didn't come out sooner, I had family in town, and i had no time to write). Unsure as of right now when the next chapter will be out, since i'm also writing 'a calendar year of you' at the same time (if you're looking for something to read while you wait for this update, i highly recommend that. Very good. Very worth it). Hopefully no longer than two weeks between now and the next chapter, but i've got other responsibilities that are about to pick up so we'll see. 
> 
> Comments and kudos make my whole entire day :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance goes to nowhere with Keith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this will be the final chapter, with a short epilogue to follow. Thank you all for your continued support.

Because one of them has to be responsible and sensible, Keith sends Lance back to the castle to pack a bag, and, “for the love of all things, please put on some shoes you actual dumbass.”

And then they’re off. It’s been two—more than two—years since he’s been like this: on a ship, with no destination in mind but simply _flying_. They’re only on Keith’s admittedly cool shuttle, but it’s nowhere near Red or Blue and right now, Lance is okay with that. He’s okay to not be back where he once was, to not step into the shoes that were too big for him in the first place.

A dingy little shuttle is exactly what he needed. Any more, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be standing at the bay window, watching the stars as they streak past, a blur of white and soft yellow and the occasional glimpses of blue and red.

He’s become attuned to Keith’s lack of noise as he moves, so when Keith appears next to him without any warning, Lance doesn’t flinch.

“I’ve missed this,” Keith says, and Lance knows well enough how to read between the lines.

“So have I,” he replies softly, doesn’t miss the way Keith stiffens ever so slightly before relaxing once more.

“Where do you want nowhere to be, Lance?”

“Wherever you’ll take me.”

‘Nowhere’ ends up being the Blade home-base, Keith tells him with a hand to the back of his neck and a mix of sheepish and embarrassed warring for control on his face.

They need to stop there first so Keith can check in with Zethrid and make sure that she hasn’t eloped with Ezor (“I keep telling her, she needs to do an actual, blade proposal. You can’t just e _lope like that_.”), as well as pick up some more supplies for Keith’s next mission.

“Keith,” Lance says, exasperated. “How long were you actually supposed to stay on Altea?”

Keith doesn’t look at him when he answers. “Three days, max.”

It’s a simple admission, but Lance has to leave—has to go back to the bay wall, needs to see the stars to know that he’s moving again and that he isn’t dreaming. Has to know that he’s still alive, in this moment. Has to understand that space was always warmer than it should have been.

Keith doesn’t join him, and Lance… Lance is okay with it. Because this wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this, and both are dealing with it in their own ways. Impulsiveness—that was supposed to be Keith, not Lance. Not Lance.

He can feel himself slipping, back down into the mind that’s never silent, in the place where his anxieties live and regret reigns. The place where him being here is a mistake, that recovery wasn’t supposed to happen like this, not with him. Not with _him._

Lance knows. Knows all too well when the stars blur from something other than speed that he needs to get out of his head, to do something better than sit here and _think_. Wants to be able to function like he used to, wants to sit up in the cockpit and laugh, hear the way his voice intertwines with another’s, how their laughter always did sound so right together.

Wants to be someone he’s not.

Wants to be someone he can’t quite reach, not yet.

Wants to be more than enough for someone.

Keith finds him, and Lance doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting by himself only that when Keith arrives everything else is quiet. Simple.

He’s out of his head.

“We’ll be there pretty shortly,” he says easily, and Lance nods.

“Are you excited to see Zethrid and Ezor and Axca again?”

Keith makes a face like he just witnessed someone throw up. “Sure.”

Lance can’t help but snort, can’t ignore the way the barest hint of a smile tugs at Keith’s mouth.

His chin is on his knees, drawn up tightly to his chest, and Lance uses a stray finger to trail patterns into the residual dust on the bay floor.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“Why?”

It’s an open-ended question that has no foundation, but Lance can’t make his mouth form the question he really wants to ask.

And he’s pretty sure that the lions must have fucked with their minds and created some sort of bridge between them because Keith answers it as if Lance had asked the real question he wanted to.

“Because I couldn’t bear to see you become the person you always loathed. And you were hurting, and I didn’t know what to do other than let you come to me. I might have been the leader, but you were the one I followed, Lance.”

Lance turns his head just enough to catch Keith’s eye, that stupid violet staring right back at him with the openly-guarded expression Lance has come to know all too well.

“Thank you,” Lance says quietly, more to the words than two short syllables.

The openness in his expression melts into something else and Lance doesn’t need to see the stars to know that infinity hurts more than any of them will ever realize.

“Always.”

~~~

It’s a day and a night before they reach the Blade base, because as fast as the shuttle can travel, it can’t wormhole reliably, and Lance like his body in one piece, thank you very much.

It’s the night that’s the problem. Not that there is ‘night’ in space, but a body demands what a body demands, and soon enough Keith is yawning and nodding off sitting in the cockpit. The ship’s lights have dimmed, and Lance is feeling exhaustion pull him down as well.

“Keith, dude, you’ve gotta go to bed.”

Keith opens his mouth to reply before it dissolves into a yawn. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

A deadpan stare. “I seem to remember more than one night where a roof and some rocks were involved, and you claimed you didn’t need sleep.”

Lance shifts on his feet, knowing he’s been called out but not willing to admit to it. “And you fell asleep at least three times in Coran’s meetings because of those nights. You need sleep.”

“So do you.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

It’s a statement, not a question, and Lance stills. Meets those violet eyes that know too much and the broad expanse of stars just behind him.

“Won’t,” he says at last, barely more than a breath of air, and it’s a weight off his shoulders. The tiny, simple word, but it’s freeing.

Keith takes a step toward him and Lance is thrown back to so many moments before this, when Keith looked at him like that, with a grace that Lance didn’t know he possessed, with a heart he didn’t think existed.

“Why not?”

“Nightmares,” Lance says simply. And it might be simple, but it’s the truth. And the truth fucking hurts to say aloud.

Keith doesn’t ask him what they’re about. “What makes it better?”

An answer springs to his tongue, instinct says to spit it out, but something holds Lance back. He’s tired to lying, tired of being stuck like this, stuck in the past.

“My mama always used to hold me,” he says softly. “Whenever I would wake up from a bad one. It was like she had this, you know, sixth sense of motherhood or some shit. She would always come into my room just after I woke up and would hold me until I stopped shaking. When I was young or they were particularly bad, she would sing to me. I don’t remember the lyrics now,” he says, a soft laugh on his words as he remembers. “I’m not sure it’ll help now, though. Not with the ones I’ve got currently.”

Keith looks pained when he responds. “We could always try it, if you want.” There must have been something on Lance’s face that throws him because he’s got this flighty look in his eye and his hands are bunched at his sides. “If you go to sleep and have a nightmare, wake me up and I can try and talk you through it or whatever.”

Lance is nodding before his mind catches up with what Keith said. He hasn’t slept in so long—hasn’t wanted to sleep in so long—that the mere possibility has his eyelids drooping and fatigue washing over him.

“Yeah. I’d actually—that would actually be okay.”

The openly-guarded face is back. “You just need to wake me up, and I’ll be right there for you. Alright?”

“Alright.”

And Lance is okay with it, because fucking hell sleep sounds pretty good. Not even nightmares would be enough to drive him away from it at this point, not when it’s been a solid four years since he’s felt rested. One night won’t change anything, he knows that, but one night helps.

But then they get to the sleeping quarters and Lance suddenly rethinks his decision.

“You know there’s only one bed, right?”

Keith glances between it and Lance. “Yeah. These shuttles aren’t exactly made for more than one person, so this is usually all there is. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“The fuck you will,” Lance says, surprising himself. “The bed is yours, dude. I don’t need to sleep. The whole nightmare thing was stupid anyways, it’s fine—”

Keith snags him by the wrist as he turns to leave, mind already made up about watching the stars until his eyes burn.

“That’s not happening. You need sleep a hell of a lot more than I do, and now that you’ve said it, there’s no way I’m backing down.”

Keith forces Lance to meet his gaze, the stand off between them so familiar that it makes Lance’s heart ache in a way he doesn’t want to acknowledge.

“I’m not taking your bed, man.”

“Too bad, because you definitely are.”

“See, you just admitted to me taking it!”

Keith lets out something akin to a growl that has Lance pausing, anticipating. “Lance, just take the fucking bed.”

It’s angry and Lance knows he’s pushing his limits, but the coldness of space doesn’t reach him and fucking hell if Lance didn’t miss the thrill of pushing Keith.

“Or what?” he asks, stepping closer and ignoring all sorts of limits he had in place.

Keith meets him, eye level thanks to the space whale. “I’ll strap you there myself.”

Lance cocks a brow and the familiarity of the gesture feels so right. “I’d like to see you try.”

Keith moves, faster than Lance can track or register. He’s being spun around and then his legs are being knocked out from under him and all the sudden he’s on his back in the bed and he’s nose to nose with Keith, who has his arms pinned at his sides.

“How’s that for trying?” Keith murmurs, and Lance can’t breathe.

The other boy registers the change and is off him in an instant, backing away and pushing his hair out of his face. “Lance, I’m sorry, that was way too far—”

“You made your point,” Lance says, voice uneven and he doesn’t—can’t—tell why that is.

Keith looks pained. “That was totally out of character. I’ll just—”

“Stay.”

Keith freezes, one foot out the door.

“What?”

“Stay. You said you’d help me with the nightmares. You need to be here for that to work.”

“Oh.”

Then tension remains, albeit slightly toned down, as they each prep for bed. Lance’s fingers dodge the marks on his face as he spreads his nightly cream around, and for a long moment, he gazes at them in the shitty mirror.

Looks at the soft blue they’ve become, uses a nail to trace just beyond, marking the shape and size. They’re a good contrast against his skin, he must admit. The longer he looks back at himself, at the person he’s just beginning to recognize, the _righter_ space feels. And the less full his head is, the lighter the guilt.

“You almost done in there?”

Lance clears his throat, just barely grazes over the marks before he steps back, turning and brushing past Keith on his way out of the bathroom. “All done.”

Keith doesn’t spend long in the bathroom, his hair mussed and his face tired when he emerges. He stands at the foot of the bed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking anywhere but at Lance.

“Guess this is goodnight.”

“Yup. Guess so.” Lance glances down at the floor. “Are you sure that’s all the bedding you want?”

A spare pillow and blanket are all that lay there, nothing to fight back against the cold metal that makes up the ship floor. “I’ll be fine,” Keith shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”

Guilt, a different kind of guilt gnaws at Lance, and he reaches under his and tosses down the other blanket.

“I’ll be warm enough. You take them.”

“Lance—”

“Don’t argue with me, please.”

Keith makes a face like he sucked on a space lemon, and Lance hates the wiggly feeling in his gut, the indecision that comes with wanting Keith to disagree but knowing that if he does Lance would back down.

“Fine,” he eventually concedes, and steps over to where the blanket lay pooled on top of the other one. It’s not long before they’re both doing the best, they can to get comfortable, not long before the low lights fade entirely into darkness, not long before Lance falls asleep, faster than he thought possible.

Not long before the nightmare starts.

Lance knows the cycles of sleep—studied them when he stopped sleeping. Knows that it must be at least an hour of rest before he could be dreaming, but it feels instantaneous.

Not that he knows he’s dreaming.

He’s back on the battlefield—did he ever leave? —standing there with his blue—no, it’s red—Bayard in hand, rifle position, shooting drones out of the sky. It’s a dark planet, the landscape sullen and dreary, bursts of smoke rising from the fallen technology. It’s chaotic, it’s death defying, it’s exactly where Lance belongs.

He’s in his element; not a single one of his shots has missed.

He keeps shooting, the power thrumming through his veins making him feel _electrified_. God, the taste of battle, the innate feeling of pure satisfaction as each blast hits _perfectly_ , is exactly what he’s made to do.

He’s an element of picturesque disaster.

Until one of his shots misses. By just a hair, it misses the drone, catching it on the side instead of in the middle. It doesn’t go down; instead, it wobbles in the air for a heartbeat of a second, and then continues flying. Lance aims again, that electrified feeling suddenly petrified. He misses. The drone flies on.

More and more are coming in now and he can’t see them, can’t even think about how many he’s letting go by because he _must_ hit that one. He can’t stop the way his movements follow it, firing off shot after shot that should have been perfect hits but aren’t.

It’s flying directly at Keith.

_“Lance!”_

Lance can’t take his eyes off where the drone barrels down at Keith, oblivious, caught up in his own fight. “ _Watch my back,”_ Keith had growled before he threw himself into the fray, and Lance was doing exactly that. Until he missed. Until he failed.

 _“Lance!”_ the voice screams again.

It’s Allura. He knows it is, knows one of the drones he let by must have been after her. Knows, but can’t turn himself around to save her.

He’s sprinting. His legs are moving with no input from his brain, moving entirely on instinct at this point, running so hard his breath goes in and out like glass.

The Bayard falls away from his hands at some point, even though he moves no faster. He can’t move any faster, and yet, Keith is still so far away.

 _“LANCE!_ ” It’s the voice of a heartbreaking death, of an inevitable fate he can’t fight back anymore, and this time it’s not coming from Allura. It’s Keith.

It’s Keith and suddenly Lance is gaining ground and he’s there and he’s not and Keith and that stupid fucking drone and _Keith—_

Lance feels like he’s the one being hit as the drone collides with Keith, taking him down in one fell swoop.

It feels like Lance is the one with blood spurting out of his chest.

This isn’t what dying feels like, Lance knows that much, so what is this?

A palm to his own chest, mirroring Keith’s actions because he’s _still so far away_ sticky with not his blood.

He’s dying, and there’s nothing stopping it.

“Keith, no, please, I can’t lose you too—”

There’s a sob tearing its way out of his chest, his whole-body convulsing with the force of it as he finally reaches Keith, finally sees the blood on his chest, finally knows that he was always going to be too late.

He was always too late.

Too late to save Allura, too late to realize Keith had been here, for him, for so much longer than he could ever say.

Too late for it all.

Lance isn’t too cold now. He’s hot, burning up from the inside out and Allura’s hand is on his shoulder, grounding him, holding him back from being there. From being where he’s needed.

 _“You need to let go, Lance,_ ” she says in that beautifully soft, accented voice. _“You need to let go before you’re too late to save yourself.”_

He’s trying to pry her fingers off as they dig into him, but they’re stiff and he’s so weak by this point, he can’t feel, he can’t think, he can’t—

Lance wakes with a strangled cry, hand immediately flying up to stifle the noise, body quaking from the force of it all.

No tears fall from his eyes, even though his face feels wet, his hand feels clammy. He’s burning, so hot that he’s cold, and he knows, _knows_ that sleeping was a mistake. That all of this, it’s too much, too soon.

He can’t hold back the sob anymore and he breaks, loud and shattering, and his hand no longer muffles the noises he can’t help, can’t help the way it all falls apart.

There’s a shuddering gasp next to him and then the sound of movement, of blankets ruffling and then in the darkness, there’s Keith. He’s blurry in front of Lance’s eyes, hazy through the tears, and Lance doesn’t know if he’s still dreaming.

He knows he’s not, knows from how _real_ everything feels, but the sight in front of him must be a mirage.

Because Keith…

Keith is here. Just like he said he would be. He stayed.

Lance sobs even harder.

Sobs because he knows, whether he wants to or not. Sobs because it’s all finally falling into place, and he understands now, understands but still doesn’t want it.

No, that’s not true. He wants it too much. Wants the boy in front of him, wants to be held, wants to fall for someone again.

Wants to continue falling.

But doesn’t know if he’ll be caught.

Because Keith—Keith couldn’t love him. Not like this. Not how he is now. Maybe, maybe there had been a chance once upon a time but the dream—still so fresh in his mind—it lingers. Feels the death like a second skin. Already knows that Keith isn’t supposed to be his.

 _“Lance,”_ Keith chokes out, and it sounds as broken as he feels. “Lance, what do I need to do?”

Lance can’t answer him, still hiccupping from the force of his sobs. He hates this—the broken, weak feeling he gets whenever he dissolves into this state, hates this feeling every time he returns from a nightmare.

Hates how wrong it feels, and how right it used to feel.

Hates that he knows he deserves more but can’t have it because of the guilt.

Hates that his mind _won’t fucking shut off._

Keith is still speaking. “Do you want me to talk to you? Just say random words? I can tell you about the blades,” Keith offers gently. “Or I can sing. I can sing if you want me to. I’m not very good and they won’t be the lullabies that your mom sang, but I can try.”

Lance calms down, just slightly. Keith’s nervous babbling is exactly what he expected, and this… this feels right for them. Feels like the old them, the terrible, godawful math pep talks that used to happen back on the ship. The stumbling but gentle encouragement, the brave face over a broken one.

“Just—can you hold me?” Lance asks, voice raw.

A flash of surprise flits across Keith’s face, and he looks like he’s going to say no, looks like he wants to say no, and Lance remembers the way he shied away from touch on the castleship, when even striking him in battle made him look like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

He doesn’t speak, simply wide-eyed in a way that Lance couldn’t analyze but doesn’t have the willpower for, and then tentative arms are being wrapped around his shoulders, a barely there graze that has Lance leaning in for more.

Keith’s arms slowly get tighter around him, until he’s well and truly holding Lance.

“Like this?” Keith murmurs, and it ends up muffled by Lance’s hair.

“Just like this, Samurai.”

Keith is stiff as he holds him, his body as far from Lance as possible even with his arms still wrapped around him. It’s awkward, and gangly, and it makes Lance chuckle. Just a little bit.

“Did you—why are you laughing?”

“You’re so stiff, mullet, you know you can relax.”

“Lance you just woke up practically screaming from a nightmare, and you’re mocking me for my hair?”

“Definitely not mocking you for your hair, definitely mocking you for not knowing how to hug.”

“I do in fact know how to hug,” Keith grumbles, changing nothing about their position.

“Yeah, alright.”

Keith sits like that, his arms still wrapped around Lance’s upper body, and Lance knows it must be uncomfortable as hell.

“Okay, c’mon, like this,” he says, pulling free his arms and placing light hands on Keith’s waist. Keith freezes, and Lance can picture the look on his face. It’s comical, their situation, and Lance is so drained that he doesn’t care.

He starts to tug Keith toward him, the other boy’s abdomen clenched. “It’s okay,” Lance murmurs, and it’s like flipping a switch. Keith’s body melts under his touch, pliable as Lance guides him closer.

“It’s okay,” he says again, and he doesn’t know which of them he’s speaking to. “Just—follow my lead.”

“That’s supposed to be my line,” Keith mumbles, face so much closer to Lance’s now, as they rock back onto the bed. Slowly, they get situated, and it’s still Keith holding Lance, but Lance knows it’s more than that. That he’s just as much of a lifeline for Keith.

Knows that they both fell at the wrong time.

Knows he tasted love once before, that it wasn’t meant for him.

As legs intertwine and bodies grow warm and feel less, Lance knows this… this is enough. Never more than enough, never what he’s always wanted.

This is as close as he’ll ever get, to ever being wanted the way he wants.

As Lance falls asleep with Keith, no more nightmares to be found, he knows that this is his reality, now and forever.

Wrapped up in the boy he loves, the one that won’t love him the same way because how can he, never realizing he might just be wrong.

~~~

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

Lance is barely awake, but that voice sounds just on the edge of familiar…

“Fuck _off_ , Zethrid,” Keith grumbles, into Lance’s ear rather than at whoever else is here with them. And then the warm body next to his is being ripped up, and Lance jolts fully awake, disoriented. “Oh God, Zethrid.”

Lance blinks, focusing in on the towering half-Galra in front of him. She smirks down at him, just like the cat that caught the mouse. “We did try hailing you, you know. We got worried when you didn’t answer. But now…” she huffs, mirthless. “We see why.”

“We?” Lance asks, bleary. “Who’s we?”

Ezor fades into color again, her head directly above his, too close for his liking. “Well there’s an unfamiliar face,” she purrs, and Lance groans.

He fully understands why Keith wasn’t all that thrilled to be meeting up with them again.

“Ezor, what did I tell you about personal space?”

“That there isn’t any.”

“Oh my god,” Keith groans, and Lance shifts his vision just in time to see the other boy bury his face in his hands, ears flushed red.

“You know, you’re a pretty suck ass fighter if you didn’t notice three pirates boarding your ship until we were practically on top of you. We could have killed you and you wouldn’t have noticed,” Axca drawls from somewhere out of his field of vision. He hasn’t seen or heard these three in several years, but some things never leave you.

“Please. Leave.” Keith grounds out from behind his hands.

Zethrid practically purrs. “As you wish, captain.”

The three prowl out, and yeah, those are definitely the walks of pirates and not humanitarians.

“They totally fucked,” says a distant voice, and unease and guilt make a nest in his core.

“I am,” Keith says, finally lifting his head from his hands, “so sorry about them. They know better.”

Lance just shrugs, trying to downplay the war going on inside of him. “It’s fine. You should probably clarify that we didn’t fuck, though. Not that that would have been weird or whatever but we didn’t and I don’t want them thinking something false even if that something false isn’t a bad something but you know, just to make the situation clear, and you know what I’m going to shut my mouth now,” Lance rambles, words coming out in a rush that ends with him forcefully smashing his lips together and pulling a face at himself.

Keith watches it all go down with a bemused look. “I should probably go deal with them,” he says slowly, and then nods once at Lance as if confirming his statement to himself, and then climbs out of bed, hair mussed and sweatpants clinging to his ass.

Oh god, Lance totally just checked out his ass.

Lance groans, flopping down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

And he feels… light.

~~~

Keith spends quite some time with his generals, during which Lance paces around the small bedroom. He’s pretty sure he could join them, but it would feel like an intrusion, and Lance knows how much the times with family after a large gap are important.

By the time he pops his head back into the bedroom to tell Lance that he’s ready to get moving, looking wearier than he had when he left, Lance has already counted all the ceiling tiles four times and spent enough time alone with his thoughts. Not even the games on the space phone were keeping him from boredom.

“You ready?” Keith asks, and the hesitation is there, sitting in front of the unknown, and Lance nods.

Takes a step forward.

And leaves the guilt behind.

Because he’s so tired of existing, of being the person he’s become that he wants to be someone else, the someone he should have been if fate had been just a little kinder. Wants to be happy, happy with him, happy doing whatever the fuck he wants to instead of what he’s ‘supposed’ to.

Wants to go to nowhere on the edge of existence and back.

Wants to do it with Keith.

Wants late nights where they sit and talk and the stars are the only ones listening. Wants everything he hasn't allowed himself to have, wants everything the universe has left to offer. Wants to feel again, the good and the bad.

_I want more than enough._

So Lance takes the hand that’s offered to him and steps forward.

~~~

They end up spending a few days at the Blade base, so Keith can deal with management and check in with the teams in the field, order new supplies, talk to important people that he outranks but still needs to play nice with.

Lance wanders for much of it, seeing things he hasn’t seen before, even with all the planet visits under his belt and the years he spent in space.

Learns so much more than he ever would staying on Altea, or even earth.

Meets people with stories like his own, who found the good in giving back, who lost and learned to love again and those that didn’t.

Realizes that Allura reached so many more people than he could have ever imagined, realizes the warm feeling in his chest isn’t love; it’s pride.

They spend only a few short days there, and Lance wakes up with less and less nightmares and more and more Keith in his bed. He knows it’s nothing more than platonic cuddling, but just for a second, seeing Keith curled up against his chest, he pretends that love is his reality. That this—this is what more than enough feels like.

~~~

“Nowhere” ends up being a remote planet on the edge of Sector 8, a tiny but market planet, looking like the picturesque black-market Lance always pictured in his head as a kid before learning that no, black markets didn’t actually have stalls and shady vendors. These vendors aren’t as shady as Lance imagined, even if their product seems a little… off.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” Lance asks into Keith’s ear as they wind their way through the stalls, the caravan of people behind them depositing much needed supplies to the eager vendors.

“Because you wanted to go to nowhere. These people weren’t liberated from the Empire until after Voltron was retired, so they should have no idea who we are beyond humanitarians. This is what you wanted, right?”

And as Lance looks around at the lack of awestruck faces, he realizes, yeah. This is exactly what he wanted, what he needed.

“When did you learn to read me so well?” Lance asks, glancing over at Keith as a kid darts through the space between them, chasing after something that looks like a chicken.

A flash of pain glances over Keith’s face, there just as quickly as it’s gone. “Dunno. Guess that’s what happens when you become someone’s right hand man. To be fair, you learned to read me pretty well. Stopping me from doing impulsive shit and stuff like that. Be my stability.” Keith scrunches up his nose as soon as the words are out of his mouth, and Lance wants to laugh at the panic that’s so clear.

He’s saved from answering with something as equally embarrassing when Keith is suddenly yanked to the side, being swallowed up into a booth.

 _Oh fuck._ Lance is darting after him, before Keith’s face appears through a crowd of people. “Relax, Lance. This is normal. I’ll be back soon.”

And then he’s gone again, leaving Lance standing in the middle of the market aisle, wondering what the fuck the correct response is.

Does he trust Keith’s word? He knows the former paladin can handle himself, knows that if Keith says he’s fine, he probably is. Still, Lance worries.

The worry doesn’t have time to fully take root when Lance is absorbed into his own little market stall, laughter all around him and cloying scents that make him forget his anxiety.

“Come with us,” a heavenly voice whispers, and Lance obliges.

He’s being pulled backwards, and his body allows is eagerly, and there’s a distant worry in him, a distant voice that says “hmm, maybe we should be concerned about this,” but Lance isn’t listening to it.

Sunlight blinds him as he stumbles into a small clearing, dust in the air and earth stone all around him. Small pools of light dot the bottom, and the faint sounds of children laughing can be heard.

It’s… calm. Peaceful, here, in this foreign place that feels like a scene out of a movie.

“Come, sit here boy,” a voice says, and Lance spins on his heel to find a hunched old woman at a table, the awning above her casting her face into shadows.

“Uh…”

“It’s alright,” she says, and her voice feels like a dream. “Come.”

Lance goes to her, sitting ungracefully into the chair opposite her. Now that he’s under the awning, he can see her face clearly, can see the deep-set lines and kind eyes.

“Who are you?” he asks, and it sounds like a dumb question the minute it’s out of his mouth, but there’s no way to take it back now.

“Someone unimportant,” she replies, voice dripping like saccharine. “Let me see your face, dear.”

Lance leans forward, mind entirely disengaged from bodily functions, the shade enveloping him fully.

The deep-set lines look like cracks in marble, and her eyes look like something out of the deepest ocean. Lance trusts her fully.

She takes a sharp inhale, and a withered hand reaches up in slow motion before coming to rest on the marking under his right eye. “You are not like the others,” she whispers.

“I was made,” he replies, tongue speaking of its own accord.

“I can tell.” Her other hand reaches up to trace along his left marking. They grow warm under her ministrations, and Lance doesn’t flinch away. “I see,” she says after a long moment, thumbs pressing firmly into his cheekbones.

“She knows.”

“Who?”

“Allura, dear.”

“You know Allura?”

The crone gives him a knowing smile. “I may not, but she knows you. And she knows him too. He has been the one all along.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.”

He does.

“I’m scared he’ll leave me too.”

The crone shakes her head. “Allura says to trust her. To trust the universe, to put faith in the hands of the ones who have held the realities in their palms. To know that he's waited just as long.”

“Why?”

“Because love has been yours all along, if only you’ll take it.”

“I—”

But the crone is gone, and Lance is back out in the market, wandering, to the sounds of children laughing as they chase their versions of chickens between the legs on unsuspecting adults.

He ends up at a stall that’s offering free samples, and Lance clarifies that they are in fact free and not Vrepit Sal’s version of free. He starts to laugh with the chef, and it feels like something has changed. The chef offers to toss him some to see if Lance can catch it in his mouth and Lance agrees, backing up and opening wide. The first shot bops him on the nose and he _laughs,_ like he hasn’t laughed in years.

He catches the second one and the surrounding audience cheers him on as he gives an exaggerated bow.

And Lance feels like Lance again. The Lance before he realized that war meant death, death you were responsible for. Death that claimed the ones you loved with a humorless laugh and mocked you when you tried to join them. The Lance before he realized that recovery wasn’t black and white. The Lance that wanted to live, to love, to be loved.

The Lance that felt like loving again.

He turns around to bow to the audience behind when he comes face to face with a shell-shocked Keith. His jaw is slack, and his eyes are wide and he’s looking at Lance like he’s just seen him for the first time.

“What’s that face for?”

Keith just shakes his head, this tiny little movement that makes his hair flutter. “I haven’t heard you laugh like that since Allura passed.”

Keith’s words sober him. He steps out of the crowd, away from the noise and into a bubble with Keith. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No. It’s the best thing.”

Lance steps a little closer. Steps closer, looks for the guilt in the gesture, tries to feel the cold with his fingers. He can’t do either. Hears Allura’s words, hears that he deserves more than enough, and doesn’t get stuck in his head like he had before.

It’s not complete, this recovery. It’ll take time, and years, and space from all the things that hurt him before he can go back to the way they were. It’ll take time, and Lance is okay with that.

Keith watches him with guarded eyes, eyes that hoped and Lance doesn’t want to do this here, with everyone else.

So, he swallows back the words that feel righter than anything else has in a long time, and says instead, “Then I’ll keep on laughing.”

And Keith smiles at him, that smile Lance doesn’t know how he’s missed for so long and knows that maybe love has always been closer than he’s known. Maybe love is his.

~~~

It’s not Lance waking Keith up this time, but vice versa. Ever since Keith had taken to sleeping in the same room as him, the nightmares had faded into something tolerable, something more akin to bad dreams rather than heart-pounding, breaking dreams.

It’s Keith that’s quietly crying this time.

They’ve got separate beds on Keith’s normal ship, but they’ve been pushed closer together, allowing Lance to easily hear Keith’s quiet sniffles.

“Keith? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Lance. You can go back to bed.”

“Bullshit,” Lance replies, voice still drowsy with sleep.

“Really, Lance, I’m—” sniffle “—I’m alright.”

“I thought we were past this lying to each other thing.” He’s swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, feet meeting the cold floor and travelling over to Keith before another objection can be made.

Keith’s bed is warm—it’s always warm—and Lance settles next to him, leaning against the wall and giving Keith his personal space until he asks to be touched.

“I just had a dream,” Keith says quietly, not looking at him, and Lance feels like they’re back on the roof.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Keith considers quietly, and Lance doesn’t push him. “It was about my dad. It was the night he died, all over again. I was being thrown out of a window and he promised me he was right behind me, but… but he wasn’t. The flames got to him before he could jump.”

“Keith…”

“I have this dream every year. Always on the anniversary of his death. It’s nothing new, it just still hurts, you know?”

“It always hurts,” Lance whispers, and they’re so close but so far.

Keith lets out a humorless chuckle. “It does, doesn’t it.”

“It’s alright to be sad, to grieve. Nothing is saying that you can’t.”

“I know. But it’s been so long, that it feels like I should be over it.”

“Says who?”

Keith glances over at him in the dark, making a face at him. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Lance opens his mouth to rise to the barb, and then closes it. Because Keith is right. “For so long,” he starts quietly, “it felt like moving on was a betrayal. Like I was throwing everything she gave me into the gutter because I wanted to be happy even though she couldn’t be. But now… it feels like I’m doing exactly that by not being happy. Like the live she’s given me has been thrown away instead of cherished because I couldn’t live it the way I wanted to; I was living it the way I thought she wanted me to.”

“Lance…”

“But now I’m not. And the guilt is still there, it probably always will be there, just a little bit. It’s okay to grieve. But we should be doing more than grieving.”

The rest of the words can’t be voiced through the thickness in his throat, and Keith has his head tipped back against the wall, neck bared, looking at him with those violet eyes that feel more than they reveal.

“You said you fell for someone who deserved all there was to give, but all you had to offer was your heart.”

Keith’s throat bobs. “I did.”

“And I fell for someone who deserved happiness in this reality, and all I have to offer you is a heart still healing, but fully yours. And I understand that you might not love me back and that's okay, so long as you're happy.”

Keith’s lower lip trembled. “Lance, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Lance murmured, shifting closer until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, “that maybe love is our reality. If you’ll have me, I’m yours, and if you won't, I understand”

“Lance…”

“…Keith.”

"I'll always want you."

"Then take me."

It’s a call and an answer, and Lance is melting into Keith as Keith kisses him, kisses him like a dying man doing all that he can to live for just a moment more. Kisses him like they were meant to be doing this all along. Kissing him.

Lance kisses him back, just as fiercely, feeling more than he ever has, and liking what he’s feeling. There are still pieces of him that he’s yet to find, but Keith was the one who started to give him those pieces back, the one who decided that Lance was the one for him, the one who never thought he’d be loved the way he loved, but was happy if they were.

Keith, the one who’s been by his side for so long; neck and neck, shoulder to shoulder.

Keith.

His love, in this reality and the next.

Lance kisses him like he’s coming home.

~~~

**Me: I love you**

_Keith: I love you too_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death is... not something that I cope with very well. Both because of who I am as a person as well as my anxiety/OCD, I tend to fixate and internalize the guilt I feel over things I possess no control of. Unexpected death hits me even harder, as it often does, but for me personally, this has been hard. It's very hard for me to write about death and recovering from death, and while you might be surprised at that given some of my other fics, it can still be difficult for me. With a project such as this, I wrote it in order to cope with Allura's death, a character that I adore and admire. But now that I've come to terms with it, this story is painful for me to continue to write. It was not something I ever fully planned out (or at all), and I'm no longer feeling the same drive to write it. Due to an unexpected death in my own life, I will be ending this here. I plan on a short epilogue sometime in the near future (hopefully). Thank you all so, so much for following me on this journey, for every wonderful comment you've left and every hit and kudo. I hope this final chapter was worth it. 
> 
> as always, much love to you all <3


	5. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue, as promised. It's now year three of Allura's passing, and Lance finally returns to Altea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took me longer than expected to get out, but well, here it is. Thank you all for reading and staying with me on this journey. Comments and kudos are loved and appreciated.

For the first time, Lance isn’t the first one here.

Their ship lands with a slight bump, Lance rocking on his feet as the view of Altea spans across the front window. Juniberry fields stretch out just like he remembers, and in the distance, he can see the outline of Allura’s statue.

It no longer feels like coming home; Altea never really was home. Instead, it’s a heavy sense of nostalgia for a place that existed for him when he needed it most, a place to grieve in a home that wasn’t supposed to be his. It’s a feeling of remembrance, like a summer cottage where you took your first steps and fell in love for the very first time.

Altea is nothing like he remembers it to be, and that’s alright.

Yes, everything looks the same when he steps out of the ship, the same warm heat hangs in the air. The same laughter comes from all around and in the distance, he can see Kalternecker’s barn.

But there is no longer the permeating sadness that used to fill him every time he stepped outside and saw the world that wasn’t his, even if the marks on his face claim it to be. He no longer sees the spaces she should have filled.

He no longer feels the cold in the surrounding warmth.

Warm fingers lace through his, giving his hand a soft squeeze and Lance squeezes back.

“If you don’t want to do this, I can tell the others that you just couldn’t make it. You could hide out here on the ship for the night with Kosmo if you like.”

A soft smile on his lips. “No, I’ll be alright. Besides, I haven’t seen Hunk and Shay since last time, and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone.”

Lance can feel as a set of eyes shift over to his face, he can feel as they trace his jawline, trying to read the lies in the way his mouth is set. _Seeing everyone._

_Yes, even her,_ he tries to convey as he turns his head just enough to meet Keith’s eyes. They’re steady, careful, the guarded openness having morphed into just openness some time ago.

Another hand squeeze, and they set off.

Neither of them had confirmed with Coran that they were coming, so there was no waiting ship ready to collect them and transport them to the foot of the towering statue, to where a small feast would be held, and memories would be traded. There was nothing but a long walk, and comfortable silence, and remembrance.

After Lance’s confession that night in Keith’s bedroom, it hadn’t exactly gone as they had planned. As it was, Lance had rushed into things once more, chasing the feeling of _something_ before he really knew what he was doing. But Keith knew. He always knew.

He knew that Lance was trying to go faster than he was ready, knew that the word love maybe wasn’t entirely correct. Or maybe it was, but it was too soon. Knew that it would be a long road forward before they could walk this walk together, like they were now, before they could know that love was in fact theirs.

Lance did take a step back and think things through. Not really about what he wanted (Keith) but about how fast he wanted it, how deeply he was feeling. After feeling nothing for so long, _something_ felt like everything.

_“Do you ever feel like we rushed into this?”_

_They’re sitting at the helm of Keith’s ship, stars blurring as they travel, Keith looking dead ahead and Lance looking at him._

_“Sometimes.”_

_It’s like a line between them has gone taut, and Keith has tensed like he didn’t mean to say the words aloud._

_Until Lance breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I didn’t know how to say it without making it sound like I didn’t want this—want you.”_

_Keith finally looks at him, violet eyes shining. “Lance…” He clears his throat. “I liked you for so long. So damn long. And to finally be here, with you, like_ this _, I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t—I still don’t—know how to have this after wanting it for so long.”_

_A shaky exhale. “Me too. Not the liking you for so long—even though that was totally a thing—but thinking I would ever do this again.”_

_“That confession that night…”_

_“It was so totally off.”_

_They both laugh at that._

_“I still want this, this long road ahead,” Lance murmurs, reaching out to lace his fingers with Keith, mood becoming a bit more serious. “And I know I’m not quite right yet and maybe won’t ever be, but I want to walk it. With you.”_

_“In this reality and the next,” Keith says, the answer that has become their call and response. Their own way to say love, when they can’t say it._

Keith is the one to startle him out of his thoughts. Another gentle squeeze and a knock of their shoulders has Lance realizing that they’ve crested the hill, that they’re looking down at the table which presently has everyone seated around it, oblivious to the two boys standing there.

“Are you ready?” Lance asks, and Keith shoots him a dubious look.

“I should be asking you that.”

Lance shrugs. “I dunno, Allura can be pretty scary when she doesn’t approve of something.”

The color drains from Keith’s face, and Lance can’t help but laugh. God, he forgot that he used to laugh like this.

“Lance?”

It’s Hunk’s voice, shocked and loud, and the pair turn simultaneously to see four faces staring back at them, wide eyed.

“Hey buddy!”

And then they’re all racing toward one another, colliding and somewhere in the chaos Keith’s hand slips from his. It’s loud and the hugs are tight and Coran as chastising them both for refusing to inform him they would be making an appearance, and somehow, in all of it, Lance doesn’t find himself sinking like he used to.

Doesn’t find the cold in their embraces, doesn’t feel like he’s struggling to stay afloat. Feels like he used to, with the happiness of another day spent goofing off in the castle or fucking around on a planet they didn’t need to save.

Lance feels like he used to.

So when Keith’s hand finds his again, it doesn’t feel like the lifeline it used to be. It feels like puzzle pieces, like coming home instead of being saved.

It feels like something they should have been doing all along.

There’s a thickness in his throat that wasn’t there a moment ago, a swelling in his heart and a feeling of content when he meets Keith’s eyes, the soft smile on his face mirrored. Lance takes a step closer and is about to bury his face in Keith’s neck when Keith turns away, and the contentness dissipates, just enough.

And then Lance realizes _why_ Keith turned away. Four faces are staring back at them with wide eyes that are different from the shock of them being there, and Lance realizes that they didn’t exactly tell anybody they had gotten together.

“This is uh… this is new,” Shiro says carefully.

_Like bad new?_

Hunk bursts into loud sobs, creating a second round of hugs, this time filled with congratulations. Lance doesn’t let go of Keith’s hand this time.

It’s twenty minutes later with dark having fallen by the time they all get seated and their dinner begins. The courtyard is the same as the last time, with a single, round table right at the foot of her statue, garden pathways off to the side and lit with a string of lights. Their lighting, however, comes from the glowing of her statue, and the pink and blue luminescence floating around their heads.

“Today,” Coran says, the speech having become familiar by now, “we remember our fallen Princess, who died for all realities to coexist, to fix the mistakes of our predecessors. Today, we remember and honor Princess Allura.” There are less tears than there once were, even as a few still slip down his cheeks. God, he missed her. “Gathered around this table sit the Paladins of Voltron, in remembrance of your sacrifice. On this night, Princess, we hope that you remember us, and join us for this meal.”

The luminescence grows brighter and then Lance feels her—the cool breeze of a wind, the smell of juniberries and peaches falling over them.

“Allura,” he says, a smile stretching across his lips. Even here, even now, after all the years, she’s beautiful. And Lance isn’t afraid to acknowledge that, to say that she is beautiful, because no matter what, she still has a piece of his heart, still has herself marked. He can see a faint blue coming from the corners of his eyes.

“Hello Lance.”

It’s nothing like the last time. The ache, the hollow, the pain of seeing her aren’t as strong, aren’t as prominent. He misses her—every day—but it’s no longer all consuming. He misses her, and he’s accepted that it’s okay to miss her, but that it’s also okay to find a place without her by his side.

That it’s okay to love again. That love isn’t a one-time thing, that it exists between galaxies, between realities, between everything fighting against it. He sees her, standing there, looking just as she did the day she passed, and feels alright.

Lance _feels_ alright.

Lance _feels._

“Allura,” Keith says, and there’s a note of something else in his voice that Lance can’t place.

Then soon all of them are talking and another round of hugs has begun, and Lance is… Lance is content.

He sees her glance over Pidge’s shoulder at him, look down at tan fingers intertwined with pale ones, sees the way her marks brighten faintly, just for a fleeting moment.

They sit and they eat, and they laugh, with stories traded and secrets shared. Lance learns that Shiro has been making extreme progress on earth, and is about to be making more progress, showing off the ring box that’s been stowed in his pocket for months now. Bets are placed on when he actually goes through with it—or if Curtis will beat him to it. Lance laughs at Pidge’s recounting of Matt’s latest fuck up, and Keith nudges Hunk in a bro fashion when Hunk gushes about Shay.

When the yawns begin and Pidge looks like she’s about to pass out into her dessert, Coran calls it a night, and all trade promises to see each other sooner than just once a year. For the first time, Lance makes a promise with the intent of keeping it.

Pidge is the first to drift away, followed by Shiro with a steadying hand on her shoulder. Hunk cleans up the table the best he can before he too disappears. Coran lingers, watching Allura, before she gives him a small wave that implies she’ll see him soon. He goes reluctantly, glancing over his shoulder as he walks down the garden path until he’s out of sight. Now, it’s just Keith and Lance and Allura, like it’s been for as long as they’ve known each other.

Lance glances at Keith, who gives him a small nod and a barely there smile. “Go. Your princess is waiting. You know where to find me.”

Lance gives him a final peck on the lips before Keith stands, chair scraping against the stone. He too disappears from view, and it’s just them, alone at the table.

“Walk with me,” Allura murmurs, and together they stand, close but not quite touching as they stroll down a path in the opposite direction from the one leading to the castle.

It’s quiet, for a long time, and Lance just absorbs her presence. Relishes in her being here, standing next to him.

The stars are spanning across the sky when they stop, Allura perching on a stone wall and Lance leaning against it next to her.

“Did you know?”

She looks up, to the red and blue star hanging among all of the other ones, closer than they’ve ever been.

“From the moment I met you, Lance.”

His eyebrows shoot up.

“What?”

Allura chuckles, glancing at him and then back up. “The way he looked at you, the way he spoke and carried himself all pointed to it. I would have been a fool not to see it.”

“But—”

“And I was a fool to go after someone who wasn’t mine. I loved you, Lance, so very deeply, but you and I were never meant for each other. We would have seen it eventually, and you always deserved someone who loved you just as much as you loved them.”

Lance is still stuck on the fact that Keith at least _liked_ him from their very first time in the blue lion. 

“I told you they were closer than you ever realized,” Allura says, humor in her words now.

“Does that mean you approve?”

A melting smile. “Yes, Lance. I always approved.”

He reaches over and takes her hand in his. Her fingers are still ice cold, but he no longer flinches away. “Good. Because he means more to me than I ever thought was possible.”

“You always did deserve more than enough, Lance,” she whispers, and Lance can see the way her eyes shine from something other than the moonlight.

“Allura?”

“Yes, Lance?”

“Thank you.”

She’s only there for a minute more, but by the time she fades away, Lance is ready.

The walk back to the castle is shorter than it seems, and before he’s ready, he’s back in his old bedroom, looking at everything he left behind. There’s a few articles of clothing here and there, but on his bedside rests the framed photo.

He smiles once at it before climbing out the window, up the trellises and using the handholds he carved out three years ago. A rock narrowly misses his left ear, and he swears, laughter coming from above.

“Ass,” he mutters, head popping up over the lip of the roof and Keith grinning back at him.

“You adore me.”

“Do I?”

Keith laughs again and then Lance is climbing over next to him, tucking his knees up to his chest and leaning his head against Keith’s shoulder.

The blue and red stars shine brightly, a warm summer breeze ruffling their hair.

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“In this reality and the next.”

“In this reality and the next.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so if you read my note last time, you know that I wrote something really long about death and not really feeling this fic anymore. I always wanted it to have this ending, and it's admittedly shorter than I was planning but it feels right. Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey, and the feedback on this has been incredible. Thank you so, so much. comments and kudos are <3
> 
> tumblr: blondeslytherin  
> insta: blondeslytherine

**Author's Note:**

> hngggg post finale has me in way too many feels and I am slowly going insane from them. please come shout at me @:  
> tumblr: blondeslytherin  
> insta: blondeslytherine


End file.
